Obama’s Call for Community Service Is Not Marxism

There are already many high schools in the United States which require community service credit for graduation. Some schools require seniors to complete a project that includes some form of community outreach.

Obama would encourage a goal of 50 hours of community service for high school students. That’s 50 hours over the course of a year, hours that could be spent cleaning up a park, reading to the elderly, working in a soup kitchen, assisting developmentally disabled children, delivering meals, collecting clothing for shelters, or working with local community programs like Kiwanis. There are myriad ways in which the youth of America can get involved with their surrounding communities, providing a give and take that benefits both the student and the community at large.

On the college level, Obama’s plan would ensure a $4,000 tuition credit to students who complete 100 hours of community service a year. With the cost of college education soaring, that $4,000 is like a windfall to a college student. The student would be rewarded monetarily, but the reward of completing service toward the community is something that will stay with them, as well as the community, forever. Service to others is a lasting gift.

Right-leaning blogs are jumping on the Obama staff for so quickly going back on the wording of the community service statement — and some are still maintaining the “forced service” part. It’s interesting to see that instead of remarking on how the staff reacted quickly to negativity toward the requirement part of the service, people are claiming that he went back on a promise or broke his word. Not really. He heard criticism and responded to it. He would still like to see students entering into community service voluntarily but he rightfully took back the idea of service being mandatory. By arguing the nature of the wording and how/when the wording was changed, the blog pundits are taking the idea of community service and turning it into something to fight about. The blog posts enhanced with pictures of Stalin or a hammer and sickle are a nice touch, though.

It’s interesting how many right-leaning blogs are frowning upon the community service idea, though some are being thoughtful about it. Generally, people on the political right tend to belong to churches, and churches are big proponents of community service. So why the negativity? Many blogs are also equating Obama’s community service pitch with Rahm Emanuel’s:

When you choose to serve — whether it’s your nation, your community, or simply your neighborhood — you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That’s why it’s called the American dream.

This is not socialism. This is not Marxism. This is the mark of a country that knows it needs to rely on those who can to help those who can’t. It’s the mark of a country that knows it needs to depend on its citizens to make their communities flourish. It’s taking the “ask not what your country can do for you” attitude and transforming it into smaller clusters, where we ask what we can do for those we live with and around, instead of waiting for people to do for us. It’s how communities become stronger, how they grow, and how a strong, giving community makes for a strong, giving nation.

Community service is not a dirty word; nor is it an idea to be tossed aside because you don’t like who is delivering the message about it. Encouraging our youth to take part in something selfless is encouraging them to be better human beings. What could be better for this country?

477 Comments, 476 Threads

He backtracked? The fact that he said it to begin with betrays a shocking level of ignorance of the Constitution. And this man will be our President?

When “community service” becomes mandatory for finishing-some-stage-of-life or beginning-the-next-stage, it is for all intents and purposes “slavery.” It may not be a crime to opt out, but “community service” will be a requirement of all students entering a college that receives federal grants (aha!) and any student lying about it will be expelled and charged with fraud.

Remember, the “encouragement” always comes with a financial reward for someone.

whoah, talk about moving goalposts. The “slavery” comments that were doing the rounds were referring to compulsory service. He’s changed his mind, and now it won’t be compulsory… and so you’re pretending that “slavery” was a word being applied to the new, amended policy, which of course is not as vulnerable to this criticism.

By the way, if you’re told to do something, it’s not “altruistic”. It’s only altruism if you do it by choice.

“The widespread aspiration of Americans to live better than their parents did.
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn”

This, my friends, is the meaning of the American Dream. It has nothing to do with what you may or may not want for people in your commune; I mean community.

The American Dream is, by definition, anti-socialist. It is what one wants for oneself.

But maybe that’s a small point. Like the line, “Community service is not a dirty word”.
Community service is a phrase, not a word.

The larger thought, though, relates to an implication left in this highly condescending disjointed missive. It suggests that many of us are being introduced to the concept of community service for the first time.

Rahm Emmanuel and Barack Obama are incapable of original thoughts. Like most Socialists, they only know what people tell them. That’s why they’ve spent so much time in school. You’d have better luck asking a blind man to do a Rubic cube. Community service is their code for the supremacy of the state over the individual. Workers slave for their communes, not themselves.

The American dream is not for the U.S. to balance its budget, though that might be a desireable thing. It’s not about my town having pretty parks. It’s about the individual getting a three bedroom house, a big back yard and maybe even a Cadillac. Or a Toyota convertible.
Or a big HOG.

Michele Catalano, Barack Hussein Obama and Rahm Emmanuel are numbskulls; they can go take a long walk off a short pier for all I care. Because they care deeply about turning my American Dream into a nightmare. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw up on them.

Community service is not a dirty word, but mandatory community service is. As pointed out in the article, many people already voluteer to do community service, but these people chose to do it. They are volunteers.

And who decides which community service is acceptable to qualify for tuition credits?

No one is frowing at community service. Get it right! They do not like to be told that they have to do it, and how much of it they have to do! That is what was very, very offensive. And no one should be made to feel guilty if they cannot or will not do it. This is still a free country.

Rahm Emanuel is not talking about `delivering meals, collecting clothing for shelters’ , or bla blahttp://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=e4qG6UIr8z hes talking about civil defense training. and exactly whats does the militaristic civil defense entail?
Coming from a student and teacher of Alinsky and Ayers I am highly suspect of this civil defense indoctrination.

Dave, the slavery comments I read and HEARD were made well after everyone knew he changed the wording. The people who said those words were well aware of the change yet still chose to use the word slavery.

By the way, there are many high schools across the nation that require some form of community service for graduation. Nobody was complaining about that. But suddenly, that’s slavery.

Also, Obama’s call for community service students is NOT the same was what Rahm Emmanuel wrote in his book about civil defense service. Nowhere did I mention anything about that book. This article I wrote is about people who think it is a bad thing for young adults to perform community service. It’s not about Rahm Emmanuel, it’s not about his book, it’s not about civil defense.

And yes, there are people who think community service is a bad thing. They were people I had conversations with before I wrote this article.

Avail yourself of one of the THOUSANDS of private charities that are out there already, doing thing far more efficiently than government ever could.

I agree with Brett_McS above. The author extremely naive when it comes to issues of power, government, liberty, human nature, and history. Americans are quite right to view such ideas with extreme suspicions and cynicism. Extremely naive.

This has ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ written all over it, because at its core, the intention of such a program is not good at all, comrade citizen. In fact it is quite nefarious.

I notice around a thirtd of the article is referencing high schools as his justification that it is ALREADY acceptable. Kind of like how Obama was ALREADY vetted. Remember high school students have already lost most of the important rights American adults take for granted. They have no right to free speech, privacy, self defense, ect. Children are closer to being property than people in a high school, and bringing it up like it matters is a sophisticated attempt to confuse the issue. Create a list of all the rights coerced labor contradicts, and then defend losing those rights one by one. This is more leftist people-controlling dishonesty.

In other words, not only do you not have a clue what you’re talking about, you don’t have one about what he’s talking about and you like it. What a staggering admission not only of your own incompetence but the meandering mendacity of your preferred master.

The biggest reason for the steady increase in college tuition is the ready availability of loans and grants. Colleges feel free to increase their fees, since they know the response of government will be to increase subsidies and loan limits. If this giveaway ($40/hr. is WAY above the market rate for this sort of work) is actually put into law, then colleges will simply increase their tuition charges in response.

This proposal seems to me to have 2 intentions: 1) funnel more money to the Democrats’ political allies (left-wing academia), and 2) encourage young people to resent real jobs, since they pay far less. I don’t think either intent is a good one.

And I’m sorry, but it’s not “selfless” to take an unskilled job that pays $40 an hour. You’ll have to come up with better arguments to support your vote for Obama.

And just how easy will it be to turn a portion of these “Community Action Workers” into nice, compliant, political workers for the National Socialist Democratic Party? I doubt Catalano even remembers just what they were called in the 1930′s in Germany, or how well that turned out!

You don’t seem to understand the absolutely fundamental distinction between state action and private action.

If I choose to spend time volunteering and doing ‘community service’ — whatever that is — that is private action. Similarly, if my church requires it as a condition of membership, it remains private action. I am under no obligation to belong to that particular church.

When the state requires individual who has not been duly convicted of a crime to perform ‘community service’ labor, that is different in kind and does constitute involuntary servitude.

Why? Because it is backed up with the power of the state to either to use its monopoly on the means of force and violence to compel the individual to submit to the state’s diktat or face fine, imprisonment, or worse, or at the very least, to refuse access to benefits provided at state expense paid for by taxes paid by all.

It is precisely this sort of involuntary labor that the 13th Amendment was intended to prevent. The fact that some schools currently require it does not make it acceptable. At least, one has the choice of attending private schools that don’t have the requirement, or choosing other public schools that don’t.

[The military draft is an entirely different matter, coming under the Constitutional power to raise and maintain armies, defense from external threats being the primary reason for the existence of government in the first place.]

There is a little magic “wording” that solves all the social problems that the Democrats-Communists are claiming to have a receipe on solving them for us. That wording is PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. They know that an individual with a properly developed sense of personal responsibility, is fully capable of organising his or her own life without a nedd for any intervention of the state. Such a person knows that it is fully in his or her hands to prepare himself or herself to a succesful life in a spiritual and material aspect. Such an individual is capable of controlling his or her education, finances, health, taking full responsibility for his or her familly. That magic wording PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY is what the Leftist fear the most. Thats why the leftists NEVER use that wording. Thats why they have banned and made it a TABU. Because they know that the very moment the so called “society” begins defining, teaching and executing personal responsibility, the role of controlling, regulating, destroying, wasting SOCIALIST ENTITY is finished. I have paid a special attention to Obama’s rantings during the last election. It is not an accident that Obama has never used that wording, he knows that it has greater value than platinium, than all the reaches hidden in Mother Earth. And it is clear that he will use everything in his power to bury that wording forever. It has already happened here Down Under. And since our local communists have taken over, the system that has been created by Australia’s most succesful PM, John Howard, system that has pulled Australia from the brink is again falling appart. And indeed everything is going down and under…

We do not need the messiah telling us how to contribute to our community when he cares pressure little himself. Exactly how has his life been a model of self sacrifice and contribution? So far all we know is he associates with terrorists and other questionable people and that his beliefs about community organizing are ALL about furthering his political ambition. Show me one example of how he has personally EVER helped anyone!! We know you cannot because this guy is a total hypocrite!!

Michele, your writing is replete with the raising of straw men and then knocking them down. It’s transparent, and convinces no one, but Obama fem and menbots.

If you’re using PJM to audition for a job with our new Socialist President and his goon headed Rahm, forget it. You come off here sounding like the village idiot, just out of “J” school where you got straight D minuses. You should go into your room and cry.

The government Mandates or dictates community service with strings attached is not community service …it is not voluntary . Choosing to serve of your own free will is voluntary. What bureacracy will administer this program ? What court will enforce the dictates of such a program ?…….Hey big brother. And what else might this lead to ? This whole community service idea is not a widely held ideal in my opinion , not when government administers it. In the long run America will reject this notion.

Seriously, people, the campaign is over. Like a lot of people here, I voted for the other guy, but Obama won. He’s going to be the only president we have. If he responds to valid criticism by adjusting his position, isn’t that a GOOD thing?

Compulsory service, directed by government or educational bureaucrats, is one of the hallmarks of fascist regimes. The New Deal was dripping with fascist ideals just such as this – your defense of Senator Obama’s sentiments is naive and misleading.

I personally think this whole MANDATORY community service thing is a crock of shite, but I am more than capable of discussing it with Ms. Catalano without calling her names or denigrating her intelligence. Why don’t the rest of you give it a try, as well.

*You don’t seem to understand the absolutely fundamental distinction between state action and private action. *

Or she’s being willfully ignorant. Either way, I’m tuning out these columns in the future.

And Kirk, I do not believe for one second you voted for “the other guy.” If dissent is the highest form of patriotism, which I’ve been told for 8 years it is, I plan to be the most patriotic SOB on the planet. And if that means opposing the dear leaders socialist plans for the next 4 years with the same degree of ferocity the left villified Bush for 8 years, then so be it.

“I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good. I will go to the people and the programs that are the brighter points of light, and I will ask every member of my government to become involved. The old ideas are new again because they are not old, they are timeless: duty, sacrifice, commitment, and a patriotism that finds its expression in taking part and pitching in.” —George H. W. Bush, 1988

“We have within our reach the promise of renewed America. We can find meaning and reward by serving some purpose higher than ourselves—a shining purpose, the illumination of a thousand points of light. It is expressed by all who know the irresistible force of a child’s hand, of a friend who stands by you and stays there—a volunteer’s generous gesture, an idea that is simply right.

The problems before us may be different, but the key to solving them remains the same: it is the individual—the individual who steps forward. And the state of our Union is the union of each of us, one to the other: the sum of our friendships, marriages, families and communities.

We all have something to give. So if you know how to read, find someone who can’t. If you’ve got a hammer, find a nail. If you’re not hungry, not lonely, not in trouble—seek out someone who is.

Join the community of conscience. Do the hard work of freedom. That will define the state of our Union.”—George H. W. Bush, 1991

A few high schools requiring paltry community service hours is nothing. But the Commander-in-Chief, an apparent fan of Marxism, calling on a civil defense force/mass community volunteerism is outright incredible. So is his volunteerism mandate that may or may not still be in effect. Obama should just say “present” when asked anything substantive.

Catalano, m’dear, it’s time to realize that Obama does not have a benign past, nor does he have benign ideals. That’s why all the rest of us are suspicious of anything that remotely resembles “1984.”

I don’t have a problem with community service; having been a Boy Scout in my youth, and now an Adult Leader for my oldest son’s Troop (and soon for his younger brother), I am all in favor of it. As many have indicated, Community Service is often looked down upon, as if it is somehow beneath ‘normal’ people, and that’s simply wrong.

Lousy solution to a bad problem. Emptying bedpans and reading stories to the deaf and mad do not teach a kid to how be an American citizen. What does is a thorough grounding in our history and our Constitution and the price our forebears have paid for our freedom. In this as in all its other duties, our education system has dismally failed. As others have pointed out, this proposal’s true purpose is to render the people stupid and docile.

This woman is peddling sugar-coated fascism. Why is on the PJM payroll?

Kristine, there is a distinct difference between advocacy and mandating.

Michelle: You like to mention the requirement many high schools have for community service…pray tell where do you see anyone thinking that act is agreeable. I have argued for years with my kids school against this requirement. If you want to give some form of extra credit for service then fine, but the second it becomes mandatory, then not so fine.

“It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.”

“Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution- or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.”

“America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.”

I detect a sneer in your quoting GHWB. Please show me where “mandatory” appears even ONCE in his statements. He’s a Christian gentleman who was appealing to our better natures and asking us to VOLUNTEER to help others, not making it mandatory. If I misread your intent, I apologize in advance.

If it is Marxism would Obama label it as such or would he deny it and have propagandists whitewash it? Would he position it as citizen spy networks like the Cuban CDRs or would he attach some “greater” objective to it.

THINK.

Also, it may not be Marxism but having the Federal government compel you to do things (more things than it already compels you to do) is certainly NOT American. This is supposed to be the land of free after all.

The author is right. A mandatory draft isn’t Marxist or socialist. It’s collectivist and a form of Nationalism (which may by Leftist or Rightist). There are many objections, but the idea is wrong on that basic level! It is alien to American culture for a good reason. In Nationalism every individual has a duty to subordinate to the whole … but Americans do individual philosophical patriotism, which is far removed from Nationalism. If Obama had the sense to drop the mandatory bit, it changes the matter on that principle level, but there remain the other serious objections: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/277997.php

Obviously the author did no take the time to read the thirteenth amendment. This also refers to involuntary servitude. As written in the original change.gov (interesting wording) community service would be required. A requirement of service would be? Well I reckon for most people that would be considered involuntary servitude.

If it was Obama peoples intention to just have a goal with tax credits, etc. as the site was changed to reflect, why did they go to the trouble of changing it in the first place? Why not just post the original proposal from the campaign which they went back too when us offensive citizens pointed out the difference?

I am offended that Michele Catalano has manipulated the facts in this article without even addressing the concerns for personal liberty that some have brought to peoples attention. Where, by the way, is the press release for the office of the president elect explaining the changes to help calm the fears of the so called lunatic fringe?

I am offended by your article and your attitude. I am neither right wing or even a Republican but I do have serious concerns about this coming administration and until otherwise required by the government it is my right to express them.

Where to begin? How about “There are already many high schools in the United States which require community service credit for graduation. Some schools require seniors to complete a project that includes some form of community outreach.”

So what? That is a high school, and there is likely a great deal of choice about the program. What happens when it’s nationalized and a Catholic kid is assigned to “volunteer” at Planned Parenthood? I can think of any number of “volunteer” organizations that have goals and aims that the conscriptees may disagree with, yet they will be required to serve.

deoduce, above, hits the nail on the head with, “…it’s time to realize that Obama does not have a benign past, nor does he have benign ideals.” I would recommend a different book, though.

Michelle, perhaps you should take the rest of the week off and read “It Can’t Happen Here”, by Sinclair Lewis. That should scare some sense into you.

One more thing: I’ve been researching the origins of “political correctness” for a blog entry and this changing of the wording of Obama’s community service requirement/encouragement/whatever is totally inline with what I’ve been reading. PC has two goals the first is that by changing the “official line” people are kept in the dark and fearful. The second goal is to make rational thought impossible, for to name a thing is to understand it.

And when this civilian defense force comes on line, what will be its mandate?

Mandatory volunteerism certainly has a certain ring to it. To suggest that it doesn’t smack of groupthink politics, is to not understand from whence it came.

I really would not mind having high school and college kids choose for themselves, a community project for partial credit one semester. Knowing how impressionable kids are and seeing repeatedly the attempts at leftist indoctrination, I wouldn’t trust academia to set the goals for them.

Frankly, I don’t see the need for making it mandatory, they have been doing just fine peer pressuring the hell out of kids with their goosestepping tactics already.

This instinct to indoctrinate and brainwash impressionable kids cannot be reasonably debated. Anyone who suggests it is not going on, is not seriously in the conversation. They are part of the inflicted.

There is nothing wrong with “community service” as long as it is not the training pants for “community organizing” and the enforced indoctrination grounds for leftist youth camps.

I wonder how long it would take to put a grinding halt on a group of kids who wanted to serve to enhance, beautify or rehab their church, as part of their “community service”? Would this be a violation of church and state in the eyes of their leftist masters?

How about if they wanted to volunteer to tutor kids of wealthy parents on how to achieve higher grades in certain subjects? Or to groom animals at an equestrian camp? Not “volunteerish” enough? Does the activity have to be aimed at a certain segment of society to “count”? Or would they be peer pressured into doing the “right” kind of “volunteerism”?

Indoctrination comes in a million forms, often in small disproving looks and “tsks” at behavior. When someone else directs your time, insists on the level of your compensation without bargaining power on your behalf, chooses your activity, and makes you work in THEIR ideology…you have no freedom. Take ideology out of the equation (you can’t) and take indoctrination out of the equation (they won’t)…and make volunteering purely a matter of choice, and it becomes a wonderful thing.

Someone printed (cough) President Bush the elder’s words. Perhaps it’s not as obvious to others, but asking someone to do something to make the world a better place and forcing your ideology down their throats…makes all the difference. Leftists never ask….and this is why they get pushback on all their ideas. They are smug and pedantic, they insist and they shout down, block out and strangle off principled dissent…in every way possible.

broken windows theory, Kristine; and furthermore, the first step in the battle against the obamanation is over language: “asking” that people volunteer and coercing them to do so are as alike as night and day.

I made my comment before I read the author’s clarifications #7. She has no idea of the depth and portent of the subject she is dealing with. It’s not just a waste of time and space, she’s a babe with a box of matches.

This is one of the most wrong-headed articles I’ve read in a long time. Most of the commenters before me have analyzed and refuted it perfectly.

Providing cash incentives for “community service” is simply not a legitimate function of government. And who will define what counts as qualifying “community service”? This sounds like a leftist power-grab scam because it is.

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk free? Workers of America protect your jobs from the Obama-maniacs who want the best jobs, best pay, biggest houses and nicest cars and want you to support their lifestyle with free labor so they can throw 5,000 dollar a plate charity balls and pretend they did their part for mankind.

i agree with cfbleachers – the problem is the opportunity such federally-mandated or federally-organized service provides an opportunity for the “most liberal” politician in the government to “spread the wealth around” – namely, the wealth of “change.” if obama isn’t a manchurian candidate, he is surely steeped, utterly, in the crypto-socialism of his associations, friends, mentors, political partners, and pastor. that’s a lot of important people to fit into the wan dismissal that “well, he’s just following the cultural fashion – and besides, it’s nice!”

the communtiy organizing envisioned in obama’s first plan is, we fear, an attempt to organize “the organizers.* see? the fact that he has revised it simply smacks of many commenters’ basic anxiety: that obama & co.’s ambition to socialize the USA will be limited only by the public’s resistance to it, which will make it politically impractical. but then they just switch to the stealth method.

i think if you listen to his speech about a national militia that’s as well-funded and as effective as the US military you will understand the concern better. if bush had said that hippies would be suicide-bombing the white house.

Ms. Catalano, several other posters have done a fine job dissecting your article, particularly Cato. I would add that using the current abuse of governmental powers by some public schools (required “volunteering” of students) to ease fears of how it might take form misses the point. And, maybe in the blogging world there have been no complaints about this but I have had discussions with my siblings and others with children in schools with these programs and they all hated the requirement. I am firmly convinced that with the help of you and others, the slide into totalitarianism will continue. Kristine: Where exactly would you draw the battle lines? And frankly, it was a bad idea when both Obama and McCain advocated for this during the campaign. The others, Kennedy and the Bushes, only asked people to go out and volunteer, there weren’t any “requirements”.

What I always find amazing is that people think that all college students have the 100 hours to give “free” to service. My kids worked jobs while going to school so they could remain debt free and get their educations. And $40 an hour? What type of job pays $40 an hour? No volunteer service is worth that kind of pay plus it really isn’t volunteer when you are getting something back in return. If the idea is to build service to your country I seriously doubt paying a tuition credit for it will build that patriotic feeling, it’s more likely to make the student think they deserve $40 an hour after they graduate. Good luck on that one!

The government introduces “goals” that eventually become “requirements” — this tactic is called incrementalism. A large percentage of compliance is eventually gained through setting “goals” and applying incentives and pressure. Once critical mass is achieved, the government points to the level of compliance itself as justification and support for making the “goal” into a “mandatory requirement.” (Yes, I know that’s redundant, but that’s common vernacular and revealing of the intent all along.)

Incrementalism is no secret tactic; it’s openly talked of within government (regardless of who’s in charge) as a useful strategy for getting unpopular measures enacted.

A business providing jobs, farming, and traditional festivals ARE community service as well. The problem lies in defining ‘community service’ only as volunteerism. Volunteerism is a great American tradition, but it is only a part of community service. Divorcing the fullness of living from community service is a disservice.

Those that apologize should use Bush I’s “thousand points of light” and compare whatever Obama dreams up. Coercing service, paying volunteers are all the same coin. State coercion is still coercion. A short step to mandatory requirements as Obama obviously desire. I love the example of raking leaves on the town square as if leaves even need to be raked at all, much less as part of a redistribution scheme.

If this is such a great idea, where have the Left (and the author) been in providing funds to pay for this type of service. It’s absurd on its face regardless of the intent. If one desires to truely volunteer, for no compensation, it should be commended. Otherwise it’s just make work to justify more redistribution of wealth and to endeavors that are of little or no value else they would have been done in the first place.

Those arguing Obama’s programs are not “Marxism” usually use a strict definition and find some point in their checklist that supposedly shows a program is not “Marxist”. We’ll grant them this loophole. However, in the end, the Obama path is less and less freedom, more and more control over the economy, and more and more distribution of the fruits of productivity to the non-productive. We should call it Neo-Marxism. Then, again, in eight years it may be what Obama’s father (an avowed Marxist) dreamed about and his son implemented.

I tend to agree with Michelle: community service is good thing! Of course, encouraging it rather than requiring it is more in the spirit of this country.

What I would worry about and I found nowhere mentioned is the cost of such a program. If it is indeed to be that widespread it would require a huge bureaucracy. And we all know how good the government is at running this large organizations…

Forget the illegality and immorality of this mandate, and focus for a second on the likely outcome.

I’ve served with conscripts, and the results are not good. The military could go far beyond what any civilian organization can do to compel people to do something. What you achieve is vicious compliance. There will always be the five percent who will do the minimum, in such a substandard manner, that you would be better off without them.

What will you do? You can’t send them to jail. You can’t make them dig ditches. You can’t send them to Afghanistan. This mandatory service scheme won’t work. It is illegal and immoral.

I’m not against volunteering. I’m a lifelong blood donor. I’ve taught English as a Second Language. I’ve done Habitat for Humanity. If I had more time, I’d do more – I have to be available for my job if called, so those opportunities are circumscribed now.

Liberties are lost, one step at a time. I barely recognize the country I grew up in. It was not totally free, but there was nothing like this level of interference in one’s life.

The government exists to serve us, Michele. Please take the time to read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution before you write again.

Michele, you’re insulting our intelligence. We all heard and made the comments of slavery when we saw he would require mandatory unpaid community service. If you’re just slow and didn’t get the word until after Obama change the message, that is not everyone elses fault.

Great idea! When do I get my house repainted?? I am waiting. Oh, and who is going to pay for all this?? Millions of volunteers going around doing all this stuff. How will they get to their assignments? Walk, car, van, bus?? Oh, think about the terrible increase of the carbon footprint of all this! The horror of increasing the weight of human activity on the planet is beyond comprehension. May it never be! I almost forgot, $4000 a year for college kids for 100 hours of community service. Now that’s a good idea and what great wages. Does the motel maid make that?? Oh how foolish. Why should I ask. Wonder what that little program will do for the deficit. Too bad they didn’t have that for me. I had to pay my own way through college but maybe that’s why I value my degree.

Fact is that these were all promises Obama made to get elected. Ain’t gonna happen but dream on lefties. The socialist workers paradise is just right around the corner. Bliss is on its way.

In all seriousness I do believe in volunteerism but believe that it should be just that, not another government program to employ bureaucrats which is what this will be if enacted.

By the way, I hope all you rich liberals out there are going to pay a bunch of taxes because Joe Biden said it’s your patriotic duty to do so and I am waiting for my share of the free stuff Obama promised me.

I guess Israels compulsory military service is also slavery, right neo-con geniuses?

Read a history book. People today have no clue of what slavery was like.

Here is a comrade so steeped in ideology, he uses a different country, invoking a MILITARY service requirement for their mere survival…and equates it with the argument that “mandatory volunteerism” imposed upon 15 year olds…is an analogy that imparts wisdom. Then calls everyone here a name, in an ad hominem “final blow”.

Sorry, comrade…the analogy is weak and the name calling debases it further. “Neo-con geniuses” probably understand that your attack on Israel is no coincidence…it’s a “two-fer” in the minds of leftist dribblers.

Your two favorite targets, the US and Israel…with bedfellows consisting of anarchists, small “c” communists, and fascists hell bent on tearing down America and Israel at every turn although, the jackals will turn on each other as one wishes to eliminate God from the equation and the other wishes to impost Shari’a law at the head of it all.

The average IQ here dwarfs the screechers of lefist bile, but their puerile name-calling and shouting down serious discussion continues unabated. I wish there was a place where the adults could converse without the constant interruptions of those who are incapable of joining the discussion.

Please, by the way…do not confuse liberals with leftists. Traditional liberals will listen to reason and will not try to indoctrinate or shout down principled dissent. Leftists are scum…and we should be careful to make the distinction.

Here in America, it’s our parents job to encourage service within the community and not the government.
The fact that the author seems intelligent leads me to believe that she is capitulating that the American family unit is broken beyond repair and that the government should step in to help those who may need guidance.
Much like our financial crisis, government cannot cure this disease.
It will take long and painful rehabilitation, most of which needs to be borne by those responsible for creating the vaccuum of wealth and parental responsibility directly.
Assuming that you know how best to fix the situation and apparently hold yourself in higher intellectual dudgeon enough to write an article chastising those whom you feel are too ignorant to embrace this concept of government paternalism would, in fact, make Karl Marx proud.

What happens if working for a political organization such as ACORN or pretend-charities like “Social Justice for the Children” are allowed as ‘mandatory community service’?

It means you’ve just managed to require a young, somewhat liberal voting block to go to work for one particular party and one particular ideology. That, folks, is millions of comrades working for the Democrats, for free, in perpetuity.

Make no mistake, this is not about the community, it’s about the commune, or more accurately, it’s about consolidating power. The nasty little sh*ts that comprise the Democrat party at the national level are incapable of thinking in any other manner.

Now tie this mandatory politicking with a ‘National Defense Corps’, run by politicians (Democrats), for politicians (Democrats, er the commune, er the ‘community’), and tasked with the duty to ensure ‘fair’ elections (see the Minnesota Secretary of State’s activities, to see what that looks like), and you get a movement that looks rather like some rather nasty political parties in Europe in the early 20th century, who often had their own police forces.

The GOP pansies still left in the U.S. Congress are about to get run over by a big rig (wait to see what Obama does with the Department of Justice).

Damn, and now I’m on record for giving money to the McCain campaign. The Dear Leader will be rather unhappy with me about that (I’m just kidding. I think.

Of course community service is a good thing. We mean Americans from Hicksville have been helping neighbors and contributing to the community, country, and world for a long long time. If we are a little resentful of being talked down to, please forgive us. Next time, we will register with the government before we donate that cake for a bake sale to benefit the local school band.

It was President Reagan who called for the “Thousand Points of Light” and never spoke as if he invented it and said it with complete confidence in the American People and never spoke as if we needed fixing. Florida has Bright Futures which is merit based and depends on the students grades, and for the most generous scholarship, requires community service. It’s amazing how the states can manage to offer rewards for students without needing a bloated federal program. It encourages students to attend school in the state and improves the chances they will stay after graduating. You do not have to be a certain skin color or come from a certain income level. The students who lose it can’t blame anyone else because it is earned by them. It is supported by Democrats, Republicans and all other political parties. Many young adults volunteer in order to get the scholarship but end up feeling good about what they did, and I would bet that many of them continue to volunteer even without the scholarship incentive. Please don’t forget that we are a nation of states and for good reason. Bloating is bad.

The weak of mind and spirit that voted for Obama have decided to become enslaved by their master – big government. If they reflect on being that slave and what they would want as a good slave , they will see that the government will provide those very things “for their own good & protection”. To them it’s a nice symbiosis. To us of free spirits & minds , it’s like caging a wild animal thus we resist for we see what’s coming and want NO part of it.

many freaked-out people who didn’t support obama have rushed to the conclusion that he will bring totalitarian Soviet dictatorship to the USA. while it may be a bizarre conclusion, it is built on inferences from proposals like this.

let’s see, we have… bailing out the auto industry, national militia, community service requirements/encouragements sweetened with tuition money enticements, increasing the tax burden on the nation’s wealthiest and “investor class” generally, restribution payments to the 48% of Americans who pay no taxes, a massive e-campaign to flood “obama’s supporters” with emails and text messages and video spots about his proposals, and a general withdrawal from american commitments abroad, including a reduction in defense spending.

oh, did i mention that he’ll be handed at least $2 trillion in rather untransparent and unregulated money to distribute through the economy, and political momentum to increase that number by a lot?

only a Leftist could believe these were reasonable and laudable goals, and that could only be because it weakens the USA. i’m sorry, if you can’t see that all these proposals are designed to increase the political power of obama and the democratic party at the expense of the wellsprings of American power and global peace, then you have no business offering your opinion on the subject. it may be that obama will “rule” in a more prudent way, but what reason is there to *presume* that he will do so?

We’ve been endlessly harangued for 8 years about Bush Empire and War for Haliburton and Christo-Fascism and 9/11-Truthers – a huge media and cultural carnival of paranoid-schizophrenia.

But what if it isn’t paranoid schizophrenia? What if… oh it couldn’t be… it was mosty to a *purpose*? Like… slowly shifting the USA toward convergence with a socialist system? If you think that idea is merely a counter-schizophrenia, you do not understand the world you live in.

I thought we ALREADY had mandatory community service. It’s called Jury Duty. It’s service we MUST perform to keep our legal system going and if you don’t serve it, you risk fines and jail.

If all the time and energy spent yelling selfishly about how “I don’t wanna help anyone, you can’t make me” were converted into a few hours of community service, to use Bush’s phrase, the mission would be accomplished and no one would be out any of their precious hours.

If I were to give out of the goodness of my heart, under no compulsion of any kind, then it is a wonderful thing. One that benefits another, and benefits myself as the act will no doubt shape my mind and soul in the way of goodness.

If I were to be forced to give, then although it benefits others, it does me no good at all. In fact, more times than not it will no doubt do harm as it will give rise to resentment.

OK, so you get $40 hour of taxpayer money to attend a school run almost entirely by leftists. This is a childish mind at work. Just because you invent a government program and can it volunteering, does not make it so, you are still paying unskilled people inflated wages to do nanny-state busywork (poorly I am convinced), and then apply the payoff to attend a school that has been overcharging beyond the rate of inflation for decades, also at taxpayer expense.

Also, anytime someone uses the tern “community” you can bet there isn’t one. There are thousands of communities, rich and poor, in this country that are truly grassroots and flow from the natural bonds and associations decent people make with one another. These communities perform all sorts of volunteer efforts to assist one another and have been doing so for decades if not centuries.

Then there are fake communities, and these are the ones that government phonies have in mind when they talk about serving under-served areas. These are the dysfunctional, trash-strewn, violent, short-sighted and self-destructive non-communities that live on the government dole to keep them afloat. They vote monolithic for socialist liars and hustlers. These are the communities Al Sharpton refers to when he says he can “deliver the project vote.” Real communities need very little government help because they intuitively turn to each other when the chips are down. Fake communities exist purely as leftist entities, entities that have to be served by paid government agencies because they have so little real community effort of their own (see New Orleans, flood).

Real communities don’t talk about community this and community that because it’s just something that’s done, a part of the warp and woof of normal existence. Fake communities blather on endlessly about encouraging this and incentives that and the joys of helping others through government programs, etc.

Oh, and real communities are overwhelmingly conservative, whereas the fake communities, the ones that would all go bankrupt if they weren’t propped up by piles of taxpayer cash, are endless objects of socialist attention. In sum, a fake community is a leftist community that has forsaken it’s traditional bonds of family and rooted community for atomistic individualism, single-motherhood, bastard children, and crime. A fake community is one that doesn’t work, cannot work, and should be labelled a cultural and social failure, but because of intellectual cowardice on a grand scale, we are now trying to bribe teenagers into doing what the residents will not do for themselves with $40 per hour school vouchers.

BTW, I live in a fake community in Los Angeles where it is definitely every man for himself, and I am not going to volunteer to do anything for the selfish, narcissistic turds in my neighborhood or any other neighborhood in this lovely metropolis–and I’m positive they feel the same about me. All the money, government propaganda, and mooncow schemes will not change a thing, all that will happen is the entire system will get gamed, and the money will pour into the pockets of opportunistic activists and the illegal labor posing as students will put a new roof on a politician’s rental property in East LA. And Michele Catalano will be busy trotting out fake studies from SUNY sociology departments saying success was just around the corner, we just needed more committed funding from the government.

There is a reason that gun sales and training classes are spiking up. Obama is pushing policies that increase the power of the federal government over all factors of our lives.

The goal: destroy religion except to the ONE, destroy all institutions not of the federal government, destroy those that stand in the way.

This next four years will be this country’s defining moment. We will either take an accelerated path to tyranny or Obama will become wiser and he learns how the real world works and backs off the powergrab. He has done nothing other than campaigning and smoozing his whole life.

I’ve never had an urge to buy a firearm and learn to use it. I am going to get an assault rifle, many magazines and ammo, a shotgun, and a 9mm semi-auto. I now really have a lot of respect for people that learn to use firearms.

You have a duty as an American to be ready to take up arms against your own federal government if they scrap the Constitution and attempt to enslave you or throw you in camps or as Rahm Emmanuel said “…the train ride…” joking around about it.

By the way, there are many high schools across the nation that require some form of community service for graduation. Nobody was complaining about that. But suddenly, that’s slavery.”

The only high schools that I have run across that require community service to graduate have all been private. I attended one such school. I didn’t have to, but considering the continuous slide into mediocrity public education had been and currently is in, I decided to go to the private institution. Choice, not mandatory.
When the government makes it mandatory, you no longer have that choice. It becomes a chore rather than a choice. In the long run it destroys the desire to volunteer. And giving tax credits is nothing more than bribing people to volunteer, kinda counter productive to the whole idea of volunteering. This is an area where BO can “overstretch.” As far as all these new programs he wants to start, as well as expand current ones, where’s the money coming from?

I thought we ALREADY had mandatory community service. It’s called Jury Duty. It’s service we MUST perform to keep our legal system going and if you don’t serve it, you risk fines and jail.

Except for the fact that there are often exemptions from having to do this, ranging from being a student, to having a child that you have to look after. Besides, the fastest way to get out of jury duty to is to tell the prosecutor, with a straight face, that, like our founding fathers, you believe that jury nullification is a natural right of the jury as a check on the legislature.

Someone will indeed have to broker this idea. In steps the community organizer, usaully someone stepping down to do a good deed. When all is said and done the organizer goes home to his million dollar home. Example, President Elect and the reverend under the bus!
Looks like a great scam to me!
Doing something to help is fantastic, having it mandated is a path to total servitude. We do need to be very aware!

I’m sorry, but the essay seems to barrel on to a foregone conclusion. It’s not that national service is wholly indefensible, just that you don’t write anything I find convincing. I’ll try not to dwell on all the practical problems, since that presumes that there is any justification for this.

For background, I work at a college and have been an advisor for an on-campus service organization for nearly 15 years. In order to meet the suggested 100 hours per year of Obama’s plan I would have to reduce my community service significantly. So actually performing the service is not my problem. I am adamantly opposed to required service in education, which is currently in vogue, and have fought vigorously to ensure that any “service learning” class at my campus has a non-service option. (This has really created some confusion at work, since my colleagues know that I am not opposed to service per se.) There is a huge difference between me volunteering my time and someone forcing me to use my time as they see fit. If mandatory community service would be an altruistic thing, then obviously my paying taxes is generous. (Oh, wait, Obama’s term was it was “selfish” to resist tax increases.)

Any payment, course credit or court order means it is not volunteering anymore. You cannot force someone to be giving or to think outside of themselves, no matter what the after-school specials led you to believe. (And even if you could, how DARE the government decide they need to be involved in my spiritual growth in any way whatsoever. I have a right to be a less-than-perfect person. Actually, I have the right to be an asshole.) Spiritually, when service ceases to involve the freely-given self, it is not altruistic or beneficial. I can easily tell when a “volunteer” is working off a court-imposed sentence or meeting a high school requirement, and so can the clients. While there are always freeloaders, many clients hate having to ask for charity and it is only the love behind the help that allows them to swallow their pride and overcome that hate.

But even if you believe that volunteerism is good, large-scale conscription should be a last resort, not a first step. Why does the government need to be involved at all? Every town and city has lots of opportunity to serve, large and small, and you can encourage without mandating. There are already millions of people who volunteer at their church, their school and in their towns. Why is government involvement is going to improve things unless it is by forcing more people to participate?

As far as comparing it to slavery, don’t let the hyperbole distract from the main argument. Why does the government need millions of conscripted workers at all? Or if you prefer, millions of people as “cheap” labor (though the price tag is anything but). Just like taxes, they are raising the (human) capital before identifying what they want to spend it on. That’s not an encouragement for a responsible use of resources. It is, however, a prescription to expand both the size of government and the number of areas it is involved in.

And while the military draft allows for conscientious objector status, based on Rahm’s comments, I suspect this service won’t. What if you are a single mother? What if you work full-time to pay for school? What if you are the person who needs the charitable help? What if you’ve volunteered your entire life and now that you’re retired you’d like to enjoy yourself, but because no one verified your service in all that time the government wants you to “volunteer” now?

Michele writes that “He [President-elect Obama] heard criticism and responded to it.” If it were that simple my reaction would have been very different. The Obama team did not respond with an announcement, or an official change in policy; the website suddenly removed the offending details and sent them down the memory hole. That alone should worry you a bit. Both Obama and Rahm have been vocal proponents of mandatory service for years, and have vigorously defended the “mandatory” part before. To suddenly, slyly, eliminate it without an explanation seems more like a “we’ll sneak it in later” than a “we were wrong.” To my mind, this politician has used up his his benefit of the doubt on this topic.

The commenters here are already a good job of showing you the flaws in your argument. So I won’t say any more on that other than it was full of holes and the issues went completely over your head.

I will say however that I think you’re absurd that by saying Obama scrubbed his change.gov website, that he “backtracked”! Hiding/changing information without remark isn’t “backtracking”, “backtracking” would involve some sort of noted public retraction. Obama just swept it under the rug. That’s hiding his true intent, not changing it. Good grief.

If you are doing something freely out of the goodness of your heart knowing that it helps another improve his or her lot by acquiring independent, productive, self-sustaining economic capabilities without permanently relying upon you, then you know, even if it is the very last, most denied thought in the back of your mind, that you also partake of the beneficence of reducing the threat of a hoodlum otherwise killing you, robbing you, or erecting socialism to appropriate your possessions or harvest you like a “human resource”. (Remember a generation ago when Human Resources used to be called Personnel? But what’s in a word, right?).

Freely helping others become independent of help is a good, moral, mutually beneficial, selfish motivation, and the root of all that is right and honest with the world.

Should hoodlums, or worse, the ignorant and mindless, give rise to a government that serves as the enforcement arm upon some to subsidize and raise the lot of others who are hoodlums or mindless, well then that is economic imposition, rape, extortion, slavery, socialism – pick your favorite semantic flavor – and is a direct threat of violence against your inviolate, free existence.

Study up on objectivism to brush up on your understanding of reality, truth, and honesty.

And why do you think there won’t be exemptions for people who are unable to perform any community service? Although the original suggestion was ONLY for high school and college kids, not working professionals.

In all the screaming, remember this is a suggestion. The only floated idea to to make it mandatory was as part of a school curriculum. And why wouldn’t community service be as valuable a “lesson” as reading, writing and civics?

I went to two of those schools (high school and college) that required X amount of community service to graduate. At first everyone complained, but in the end, I knew of no one who didn’t EXCEED their required amount. They got that much out of it. The result was to make me, and most of my classmates, life-long volunteers. What a valuable lesson to teach children.

Seems America has always been at its greatest when called on to sacrifice and think beyond their own selfishness. I think of the call for Victory Gardens in WWII when the American people, in little pea patches behind the house and in tub gardens in cities, managed to raise more than 25% of the food America consumed during the war.

If you want to be concerned about your rights and slipping into totalitarianism and Marxism, start screaming about the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of due process in Guantanamo, etc.

These are much greater threats than the possibility that your kid may have to put down the Gameboy and rake a public park.

Volunteerism – “Community Service” in the language of the dim – has been a long-standing custom for Americans. They have always done a fine job of helping the truly needy when called upon. The Left sees this as insufficient, though Leftists rarely help, themselves, and demand more of others. Calling it altruism is meaningless. Once the government steps in things go to hell, and fast.

The initial call was for ‘mandatory service’ and that is involuntary servitude. Just because The One backtracked changes nothing. The inital impulse was to force people to ‘volunteer’.

Here’s my question: when a citizen engages in civil disobedience, and refuses such service, what are you willing to authorize the government to do?

For all the derangement that we’ve heard for the past seven years about how Bush is taking away civil liberties, the left is showing their disingenuousness by then suggesting that involuntary servitude, as long as the right god is being served, is fine.

My oldest son is an Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts. We put in numerous hours volunteering through the years. His Eagle project was outdoor benches at our church, the same church his troop is sponsored by. Some of the benches were secured outside of the building where the church has a soup kitchen and also a food pantry. We have also volunteered at both of those. He loved working with Habitat for Humanity. I never really thought about what all we did through volunteerism until now, when someone put a price on it. Yes, my son was eligible for numerous scholorships through scouting because of his rank, but I promise you he put in more than 100 hours a year for close to ten years. Most of what we did involved our church, would this go against seperation of church and state under Obama?

When a price is put on volunteering it is cheapened! I think the government should encourage volunteering but not pay or compensate for it. Keep the government out of it!!

Your son is a perfect case in point. Once he started volunteering, I’m betting he got so much out of it, he couldn’t be stopped. I’m heartened that there are kids like yours out there and kudos to you for raising him right.

Although he’s probably the kind of young man who would pursue this path anyway, community service was a requirement of his Eagle Scout program. He could refuse, but then he wouldn’t get the ranking.

So why is it such a great leap to make volunteering for a set number of hours a requirement for high school graduation? 100 hours over four years is nowhere near onerous.

And my bet is most kids would end up WANTING to do more once they got a taste for it.

I wish Obama hadn’t floated the idea of rewards and goodies for volunteering. I think the message should be “helping your community is part of the price of being in that community. If you are able to do it, it’s expected.”

“If you want to be concerned about your rights and slipping into totalitarianism and Marxism, start screaming about the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of due process in Guantanamo, etc.”

I love that. My rights = the rights of an islamic terrorist plotting mass destruction. Nope: no difference there at all.

Rights are only rights if everyone has them. If you support free speech, you have to support allowing the KKK to have a rally (as long as it doesn’t cross the line to inciting a riot or violence.) If we have due process of law here, it’s got to be for everyone, not just someone you don’t like and want to call guilty before they’ve been convicted in a fair trial. And warrantless wiretapping opens the door for ordinary citizens to be spied on without the process that used to be required to prove that there was good reason to put them under surveillance.

If you start parsing out who gets rights, where do you stop. Oh, we can wiretap Republicans because they don’t have the majority party anymore. We can spy on these neighbors because their skin is a different shade. They aren’t really “REAL Americans.”

A lot of countries have mandatory service requirements for citizens. It’s neither fascist nor Marxist, it simply is. I think that having to make some sort of sacrifice for your country is not a bad thing, especially if that service does not have to be military service.

Would a sense of civic responsibility, even a compulsory one, really be such a terrible thing for our fractious nation?

Great post; pathetic response. Even if community service was mandatory it would not equate to the type of slavery associated with our country’s history; anyone who thinks so needs to revisit America pre-1964. One of the primary problems in our society is individual isolation and ennui; take uburoisc’s post who delineated “real” and “fake” communities. Of course, “real” communities are neither red or blue; however, uburoisc claims the “real” communities are conservative and “fake” communities are liberal. This is an over-simplification of the worst magnitude. Living in a city like Austin, Texas, as I do, I vehemently disagree with his assessment; many in our “fake” community are well organized, supportive, and community-service oriented all without forsaking the “traditional bonds of family and rooted community for atomistic individualism, single-motherhood, bastard children, and crime. A fake community is one that doesn’t work, cannot work, and should be labelled a cultural and social failure.” It’s truly alarming that someone can hold this worldview without refraining from imbuing it with further falsehoods. There certainly are communities, both conservative and liberal, that are greatly affected by blight, unemployment, drug use, and the like, but to assume that you can categorize each type politically is ignorant beyond measure. Even if community service does not strike us as useful, judging others, especially the most unfortunate, should not be left to those of us least qualified to do so.

Ok, now how about taxes, if the kids do the “volunteering” get the 4000, do their parents also have to pay taxes on this?…sorry Michele, you probably have good intentions, but you definitely aren’t thinking any further than the tip of your nose right now. ANd everyone else has pretty much covered any other points.

I have a problem with one of your premises: that slavery only benefits the slave-owner while community service benefits others. Ridiculous. In the past, slaves were used to build roads, hospitals, churches, libraries – even the White House and the Capitol building – and served as nurses and caretaker to the old and young. These services certainly benefitted entire communities as well as unfortunate individuals. Many were funded with public moneys. But the people who provided them did so involuntarily, under legal and physical coercion by their government and their society, and with no compensation for their time and effort.

Do you really believe that if a slave builds a hospital or looks after a sick indigent, that it somehow doesn’t count as slavery because it benefits the larger community or its most needy members?

I agree that equating Obama’s plan with slavery is an exaggeration and that his plan doesn’t quite fit the definition of slavery. A slave has no choice – he or she is legally bound to serve without compensation. Under Obama’s “old” plan, non-volunteers will still be citizens, still vote, presumably still hold office – they just have to sacrifice their high school or college diplomas, decent jobs with decent pay, and other attendant benefits. So I guess that means it’s not coercion at all – just a choice that people are free to make. Do it Obama’s way and prosper or do it their own way and remain at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. This is the definition of social engineering.

I do not find Obama’s website metamorphoses encouraging. If he morphs one way this week, maybe he’ll morph another way next week. How can you trust someone whose policies change every time the wind blows? It makes him seem either spineless or insincere. Either way, he should decide what his policies are and stick to them.

“Mandatory service” is the definition of slavery. Period. Yes, Obama realized the import of what he said (i.e., someone pointed it out to him) and he backtracked. That does not make the criticism of him (and the irony of a black man calling for it) invalid. Indeed, the fact that he quickly repudiated his own words confirms the validity of the criticism.

Yes, it’s good that he backtracked. But what Obama revealed about his underlying (bad) instincts is not reassuring. You should be criticizing HIM, but instead you are attacking his critics. That, by the way, says something about YOU.

I am not opposed to civilian volunteer corps, as long as they are just that: volunteer.

What creeped me out was the creation of a civilian defense corps that would rival DoD in funding and strength. No doubt this would mean further gutting of Defense funding. Also, given how the Obama campaign silenced its critics, I wonder what this civilian defense corps would do.

I would however promote volunteerism in national emergencies through Red Cross and other relief organizations.

And why do you think there won’t be exemptions for people who are unable to perform any community service? Although the original suggestion was ONLY for high school and college kids, not working professionals.

What exemption would they need, other than being seriously injured or something equally extreme? Most high school students, unlike people on juries, live at home and could have any children they have taken care of by their parents.

In all the screaming, remember this is a suggestion. The only floated idea to to make it mandatory was as part of a school curriculum. And why wouldn’t community service be as valuable a “lesson” as reading, writing and civics?

When those students are forced to learn how to read, write and do basic math, they are left with a useful skill. When those students are forced to do labor in the community, they get nothing out of it, and the only thing that many of their recipients will get is a surly disposition and a half-assed job.

I went to two of those schools (high school and college) that required X amount of community service to graduate. At first everyone complained, but in the end, I knew of no one who didn’t EXCEED their required amount. They got that much out of it. The result was to make me, and most of my classmates, life-long volunteers. What a valuable lesson to teach children.

Putting aside the issue of whether or not this lesson would be learned by most people in your situation, let’s follow this train of thought. You know what would be also good? Drafting everyone for 2 years of military training and reserve duty. Why have the National Guard do relief duty, when you could teach high school graduates the valuable lesson of taking a personal responsibility for the defense of their society and its relief in times of natural and man-made crisis?

What’s that? It’s ok to draft students to make them do menial labor in their community, but making them wear a uniform 1 weekend a month is out of the question?

Community service is also a form of patriotism; you’re serving your country in a civilian fashion. Our troops should not be shouldering the responsibilities of serving their nation alone. True, this may not compare with military service, but the fact that it is about doing something FOR America gives it an intrinsic patriotic value that the “Country Firsters” may wish to think about. Frankly, I would not have a problem with it being an actual requirement for school or college; isn’t a military recruiting “draft” of all males aged 18 and over a form of compulsory service? This is not about the merits of a draft, either. The people screaming and objecting to this are hypocritical, having questioned the patriotism of President-Elect and his supporters. Now the possibility of a meritable program with the nation’s best interest comes along, and they squawk again about “marxism” or “socialism” or another “ism” they can pull out of thin air. For all you personal responsibility and accountability types: Quit whining. Serve your community; serve your country. It’s called patriotism, and President-Elect gets that.

Where in the Constitution is it that this type of nanny-state crap is to be found? Neither the government, nor the citizenry, have a right to tell me and my family that we “have” to do some sort of community service. If we choose to do something, that will be our decision. The rest of you can f**** off.

Lisa, frankly I don’t give a flying freep who listens in on my phone calls. I’m not that interesting, and I’m not paranoid. I do care, however who is conscripting my kids into mandatory ideological “service”. Maybe you should see a shrink about that paranoia thing if you think Bush is listening in on your phone calls.

To keep all the right wing whackadoos, who believe that anything a Republican President does is good and everything a Democratic Presdient does is evil, calm, we do away with the community service idea and re-authorize the draft with the change that it apply to all citizens 18-35 with a 2 year service period. Now mind you–they will be paid, so no claims of slavery. And the power remains with the DOD, not a separate organization. Everyone, and I do mean everyone would serve their 2 years. Persons with conscientious (sp?) objections could do their service in VA hospitals. People with physical limitations can be limited to office or menial jobs that have to be done, but do not require great physical prowess.
There done–now shut up–you lost the election–in a big sorta way–take it like a man.

I am appalled that American parents are not championing this mandatory initiative to get their high school kids to give up one hour of face book time a week or one hour of Xbox. How many minding numbing hours are these kids wasting in visual electronic ecstasy, when they could be out serving the state?

When they get to college, are you really telling me that Mr. and Ms. Freshmen can’t give up an additional hour a week to help out the STATE, instead walking around in an alcoholic and MJ haze from Thursday night until Monday night?

Then, you have these ungrateful retirees, who are sitting around cleaning their dentures and watching reruns of golden girls and you are telling me that they can’t get off their duffs to rake leaves in the park, wash gum off sidewalks, and scrap offensive republican party posters from telephone poles and buildings? Give me a break. It is just too bad that Obama did not include Single moms in his plans. I know how willing and able they are to give of themselves. Why they have kids for the benefit of the STATE. I am sure they want to give more and more.

Who will determine what community service is? The government will have a list of acceptable agencies and jobs. Why not let the teenagers go out and get jobs and save the way they used to? Why doesn’t Obama encourage teens to go out there and do the jobs the illegals are doing, like cutting lawns? Well, that’s because the money would stay in the private sector and might teach lessons about (gasp!) the free market. Bush’s “thousand points of light” is completely different because it was entirely voluntary and private. This is scary stuff from Obama. Be afraid, very afraid.

Modern day Marxists have adapted. They don’t literally “force” us to do things because even idiots can sense that is pure evil. Instead they confiscate vast sums of money through the tax system and then give it to those who do what the government wants done. It is much more subtle. But it sure isn’t freedom. It is still a government run society. Tyranny of the majority is still tyranny. Are we really any less “slaves” because we are technically free to do as we please but can’t really afford to exercise that right? Maybe a little less, but not that much.

Community service is suppose to be voluntary. Other wise forced service is involuntary servitude which is unconstitional. To volunteer means to give freely of your time and resources with no expectation of reward or payment. The only reward for volunteering is feling good that you’ve done something to help someone. When people receive a monetary reward or tax credit for their service, it is no longer volunteering, but work for hire. There are plenty of non-profit organization that welcome volunteers for a variety of tasks for citizens to serve in at their own will and liesure. The only encouragement government should do with regard to community service is use in court sentencing for petty crimes and perhap print posters to hang in schools to encourage students to do it. Anything more than that take the joy of giving back away. Community Service should be a selfless thing, not something done for ones selfish gain (i.e. tax refund/credit or tuition discount.)

Obama’s plan was not Marxism as some tried to suggest but it was repugnant to all who beleve in individual freedom (even a British leftie like myself) Barak Obama is not a social democrat he is a devotee of that odious philosophy liberal paternalism. The philosophy, favoured by many oligarchs, holds that people are free so long as they obey all the rules to the letter.
It is already clear Sidi Obama is way out of his depth; this became clear to us in Britain last week when he issued orders to the Britsh Government on a particular issue. Not only is he having trouble understanding his is not actually President yet, he seems to be struggling with the idea that he will only be President of The united States and not the whole world.

Lisa Paul: If you don’t mind me asking, could you tell me who you supported in the last election? I know we have secret ballots for reason, so you don’t have to answer.

I just think that we are of the same mind but see different paths to solving the issue of lack of volunteerism. I live in a military town, grew up military and have always lived in a community where helping your neighbor was just a given. Maybe I don’t understand the otherside because I have never lived it. I do believe that there should be ZERO compensation for volunteering. Maybe Obama can take some of that campaign money he has left and do public service announcements about the joy and happiness that you can give others. That is compensation enough.

I semi-agree with you about the Patriot Act. I don’t want the government in my business. My fear of big government stems from the fact that whoever happens to be in charge can enforce their beliefs onto the people. Big government is fine and dandy when the leading party has the same beliefs of a citizen but when they don’t it’s not good. The Patriot Act, if used properly, would provide security for the US but there is too much room for abuse.

Why is it that everyone is suddenly so concerned with the rights of high school/college students? Where are these people when these children are abused and murdered? Abuse or kill a child, the punishment is usually about half (if that) what it is if the victim is an adult. I have REQUIRED community service of my own child, because I believed that he would learn compassion and tolerance. I am hardly wealthy as I am a single Mom and raised him entirely on my own. I see it as instilling a much needed shot of conscience into a population that tends to be more than a bit spoiled.

We a person ‘serves’ with the goal to be a reward for themselves it is not true ‘service’. Our government/President should not dictate how/where/if we CHOOSE to ‘serve’ or not.
You also don’t seem to understand the concept of slavery very well either. You say that it benefits no one but the slave owner…false. The ‘slave’ was ‘kept’ by the owner, they recieved ‘compension’ in housing, healthcare, clothing, food…just enough to live on. THAT is the same thing that Obama encourages and promotes. He wants us (the lower classes) to be ‘beholden’ to the government, but he wants the ‘upperclass’ to help facillitate the ‘care’ of his ‘wards of the state’.
He is a dangerous man, as witnessed by what slips out of his mouth, the mouth of his minions or what they originally write up. The scariest part is the way they can ‘fix’ whatever problem (or at least the wording) that ‘bothers’ the sensibilites of the masses. Doesn’t mean his ideas/ideals have changed, just the way he presents them.
I agree 100% with your referenced person who sees the irony in what this ‘black man’ is proposing. Instead of getting people ‘off the dole’, he’s encouraging those who’ve never been on to jump on/in ‘voluntarily’ by dangling a carrot they can’t resist.
But, the most dangerous thing about this man and his policies? People like the author who can rationalize everything to make it seem ‘okay’ and even ‘good’. *shudder*

“There are thousands upon thousands of high school and college students, as well as adults, doing some form of community service right now.”

Try MILLIONS! Many volunteer at in church-run programs organized to feed the hungry in the community. Or volunteer to drive seniors to appointments or help with other needs, or visit in nursing homes, or help at hospitals. Many train so that they can mobilize swiftly to assist after natural disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes. I can assure you that many give far more than 50 hours each year.

From what I can tell most high-school students who hope to get scholarships for college do at least 75 hours.

I am very supportive of volunteerism. Not only does it help fill various needs in local communities, but it can be a real blessing to the one volunteering.

I think the concerns many have about Obama’s plans is the sneaking suspicion that he will attempt to bundle all these locally run efforts into massive centralized programs with intrusive and burdensome bureaucracies.

Consider the food program at our church. It is mostly supported by church donations. However, we are able to supplement with items purchased at a local food bank and some government commodities. The regulations tied to governmental assistance are already so aggravating and time-consuming that we have considered dropping them. But then we have to consider our ability to assist as many people as possible.

When we volunteer in these programs, we give our time freely and we don’t ask for a thing in return. Some of our volunteers also need food assistance. It is truly rewarding for them to help give back to others, even while they accept help. All of this helps to bring various members of the community together who might not otherwise interact.

I have no objection to creating new programs. The need certainly exists. However, he needs to keep his hands off the programs that are already making a difference for so many people.

Don’t be a twit. The problem most people have with it is the fact that the central government is the one trying to organize this. It implies that the government doesn’t believe that the American people have a big enough heart and need the government to step in and tell us how much giving is enough. You have outed yourself this last week as being nothing approaching a limited government conservative. Some of us would like to make the choice ourselves. I don’t like the idea of handing the feds another little slice of power. Because once you do that, you don’t ever get it back. Methinks certain bloggers on this site voted for the One…including the author of this column.

Lisa, since almost all of the terrorists in Guantanamo were in violation of about every tenant of modern warfare, and have completely disregarded all the rules of engagement that civilized nations adhere to, and since most of them really don’t belong to any nation-state as it’s traditionally understood and can’t really be expected to be beneath the umbrage of any of the agreements that govern military conduct, are you on record somewhere pointing out that most, if not all, of the terrorists in Guantanamo are in gross disregard of any recognized military conduct? Do you believe that Somali pirates who open fire on a US vessel in internationals waters and attempt to board it should be captured and given trials here in the US with full rights as US citizens?

That’s great, your kid likes to volunteer, yippee for you and your kid, but like most leftists, you somehow think that translates into a government program that denies HS graduation to students unless they agree with the worth of your views on volunteerism. Like all leftists, you have to withhold certification or otherwise punish or deny accreditation or cut off the exits. And why do I think that if I went out and smoked a joint with all those kids who claim to love to volunteer, that they would tell me a different story in private?

Also, what do you think of fulfilling a volunteer requirement by stuffing envelopes with anti-abortion literature for various conservative groups? I’m sure Obama will put them on the list of recognized serice groups.

Do you all want to know what happened to all the leftist ideas about community schools and co-ops and the rest from the 60′s and 70′s? They all failed because there was no real community there. Those people didn’t like each other or trust each other; it was a fake alliance of slackers, losers, and lazy socialists. Eventually all those alternative lefty boomers came into their parents money and sent their kids to ludicrously expensive leftist private schools and academies instead, like they all do here in LA.

But guess what real grass-roots, shoestring, we’ve got a barn and five struggling families and used textbooks and a common library communities survived and flourished all across America? Even while paying taxes to a voracious and failing school system they do not use, the conservative home-school movement took off and flourished with nothing but hostility and contempt from the government.

Again, real communities have been helping and volunteering for centuries here and still do; they are overwhelmingly conservative (even when they are blue-collar, union Dems) and they don’t need a government program to bribe them. Failed communities aren’t really communities, just a loose confederation of people with no meaningful feeling of obligation to one another, and no amount of money or phony encouragement is going to make them feel an obligation to one another.

There has always been a common culture in America that helps and provides for each other, it’s just that it exists almost entirely in red states. Obama’s program is an attempt by the socialist left to compel teenagers to do things for failed communities, mostly in districts that vote socialist. This is because the leftists are desperate to frame the problems as all of our problem in all of America, when actually it is particularly acute in some places like here in rich Los Angeles, where the leftists have ruined any recognizable understanding of a common culture, and not so much in others, like the poor but tightly-knit towns of Western Michigan.

Just wait. Next they’ll claim requiring students to do homework is slavery. How dare they force young people to read books, do research and write papers! That’s real work without financial compensation! Slavery! Forced labor!

There are already many schools with community service requirements. Several charter and private schools also require *parents* to put in a certain number of hours to the school itself. Having to perform some sort of service as part of the requirements for the *privilage* to attend a certain school is hardly new or radical.

Oh, but doing any sort of work for an education is UN-AMERICAN!!!! Students should be allowed to sleep in class and go home and play video games and still pass and get a diploma or a degree. Not putting too much effort in school is the American way!

I’ve done community service. I wasn’t paid. Any American can and should do community service. It’s not a difficult field to get into. It’s true that community service isn’t a dirty word, it’s a wonderful thing, when it is real. Some words are only dirty when used by certain people, and when The Office of the President Elect Obama, which seems to have a peculiar way with words, says “community service” it’s very reasonable to be concerned. Do you recall who Obama has traditionally looked up to as great servants of the community? Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, ACORN, Planned Parenthood. There now! This list represents some fine work and tutelage for the students of tomorrow. Marxist or not, it’s easy to see many potential perils associated with what might well be name the “Damn Americacorpse”.

When a High School has mandatory community service there is little reason to be concerned that they are simply trying to indoctrinate students and pay people to further entrench their political power, but those concerns are valid and necessary when the federal government is making the mandate. It is not the role of the federal government. It is not their money to offer.

This article should be combined with the “The Myth That McCain wasn’t Conservative Enough” article, and PJM can start a Straw Man Attacks on Conservatives series.

That’s funny. I grew up as the child of a career military officer and lived in a lot of towns dominated by military bases as I was growing up (when I wasn’t living in Europe –ooooooh, the trolls will say, “that’s where you got your leftist leanings!”)

We certainly had compulsory volunteerism. Even before I got to schools where it was required for graduation, my parents MADE me do it. I kicked and screamed, until I did it, then found out how great it was. My parents would certainly see community service as a rightful part of a High School Civics curriculum.

I will tell you that a while ago I was at my father’s West Point reunion and was surprised to be surrounded by West Point graduates, career military officers and most veterans of two wars (Korea & Viet Nam) all soundly denouncing Bush and saying they would be voting for Obama (some supported Edwards who was still in the race at that time).

Their votes were based on what they perceived as the erosion by the Bush Administration of the freedoms they felt they risked their lives to preserve, the alarming growth of government intrusion with things like the Patriot Act, and their utter disgust at the gutting of GI Benefits and the Veterans Administration by a group of draft dodgers who think wearing a flag pin is supporting the troops while sending them into an ill-conceived war.

That will give you an idea how I voted — if you couldn’t glean it from my blog. I stood with the REAL PATRIOTS: West Point Class of 1951.

To quote you, “It is just too bad that Obama did not include Single moms in his plans. I know how willing and able they are to give of themselves. Why they have kids for the benefit of the STATE. I am sure they want to give more and more.”

I am a single mom, I have a college degree, work 40 hours a week, pay my taxes, I’m buying a house I can afford, I keep my yard nice and my house clean. I have two grown children whom I raised alone (see previous comment about my oldest being an Eagle Scout) that I never had to get out of jail or the sort. I now have a young daughter and I spend my evenings with her by reading, playing and teaching her. Is this what you mean by “how willing and able they are to give of themselves”?

Am I really reading this on Pajama? Give me an F’ING break, Michelle. Your rationalization for this sort of behavior is one of the reasons why this country is in the mess it is in.
If I could excommunicate you, I would.

Service to your community is an altruistic thing; it is a way of perhaps giving back to a community that has given to you.

As said here a couple of times- there is nothing altruistic about MANDATORY service. And I love the ‘giving back to a community that has given to you’. Where do you live? Disneyland? Every service provided to me, I pay for. Exactly what has been ‘given’ to me? I tell you what….call my community up and have them give me a couple of million dollars…and I’ll ‘give back’ in the form of community service.

Just a personal question: Why are you still living in LA when you hate it, don’t see it as a community and, by your own admission, can’t be bothered to help anyone there? Why don’t you move to one of those places you see as a “real community”? I actually did some volunteer work in the barrios when I lived in LA and I thought I saw a real community there. Yes, they were poor and faced discrimination, but they were a community.

Then there’s your other misperception:

“There has always been a common culture in America that helps and provides for each other, it’s just that it exists almost entirely in red states. ”

Then why do Blue State disproportionate pay out more taxes and Red States disproportionately take more government services? I think there is a lot of giving going on in Blue States and it’s not just tax dollars.

Yes, the spirit of giving used to be commonplace, but I think has eroded somewhat in the years when nothing has been asked of us. Now we see a disproportionate few (I’m thinking of the kids who are in the military) shouldering the burden for the many who were only asked, in the wake of 9/11, to go shopping. Yes, many Americans pulled together on their own, but wouldn’t it have been great if our leaders had been out front LEADING and asked it of us?

While the Western Michigan communities you describe sound very caring, why wouldn’t you think this kind of sentiment is present all over America?

Despite Sarah Palin’s assertion, there is no one place that is REAL America. All America is real America. And it comes in all colors, sizes, income levels, educational levels and population densities.

I have no kids in school, but I’m happy to pay taxes that support access to education for the general population. Because I can see that an educated populace is completely in my best interests. So homeschool or chose private or parochial school, but that doesn’t absolve you from supporting a public school system so all have access to education — even those without resources or parents who can homeschool or who just choose to go to their neighborhood school.

It’s funny that we voted for the opposite sides for different reasons!! I just found to much mystery surrounding Obama and the things that he hinted to I didn’t like. I’m pretty sure one of the first things he will implement will be the Fairness Doctrine. I don’t like that.

I took all of my elective courses in college in history and knowing what I know, he sent up red flags. I currently work for the DoD and know that there is a lot that the public doesn’t know but it has to do with security. Did you notice that Obama dropped his immediate withdrawal of the troops after he received his first in-depth security briefing? McCain wasn’t my first choice, but I felt he was the better of the two.

The good thing, Lisa, is that we both understand that volunteering is good for our nation. But it must be a personal decision without monetary reward.

What could be better for the country? Glad you asked. Mandatory voluntary service!! Say some yound lad wishes to attend a university. First, recognize it is his right to attend. Second, he’ll want to exercise his right at a prestigious school so it might be best if he voluntarily attends a “Community Service Training Center.” He can stay in unisex/uniorientation barracks adorned with motivational posters exhalting those glorious visionaries who unselfishly imagined how we would all come together, collectively, to move our country forward. He can receive training on how to organize whole classes of victimized citizens to make sure the government protects their rights to health care, a living wage, education, and housing. He can be reminded, again and again, how patriotic he is to volunteer when others, selfish people who don’t volunteer, would do away with such wonderfully helpful and pro-American activities. Glory to Obama!! Glory to the State!!

…. …..The $4,000.00 is an added incentive. It does not take the place of grants and other subsidies. I know it is a slap in the face to all those whose rich daddies paid their special sons and daughter’s way in to college. Learn to turn the other cheek now. Don’t just sit around crying cringing and afraid. Just think! We may save the best jobs for you. The only jobs left when Bush gets done will be cleaning the bedpan or cleaning the toilet. Perhaps you prefer the job of cleaning up the blood and feces of the tortured prisoners in Guantanamo. Would it not be an honor to clean up after Bush as so many others have to do. That campaign money was given to Obama to get him elected to office. It did not come from a government taxpayer coffer. John McCain could have done the same. He chose charity. If Obama chooses to help other candidates of like mind to get elected or help with any Democratic debt left over or even to save it for 2012, that is his choice. He used the donations as was intended, to the best of his ability. I expect no less of him as President.

The most interesting aspect of this article is the discussions it has created. I happen to be one of the college students, who as a highschool student, was required to do some form of community service in order to graduate. The amount of this requred service was not only incredibly minimal, but was also very flexible. Meaning I could choose any community outlet I desired to volunteer for. It seemed to me it was more of a means to get students, who would other wise not care about the society around them, to become involved and invested in their community. God forbid we encourage our high schoolers to care about their communities. If all high school students did that then who would we depend on for random shootings and acts of community destruction? As a college student I would be overwhelmingly happy to hear that my other fellow students were also “forced” to do something that not only betters themselves but those around them. But then again if college students and their surrounding communities got along we would miss out on all of the fun social/racial/and economical tensions associated with situations like the Duke lacross case. It is much better to just let local communities hate college students.

Agreed. Volunteerism should, in the best of all possible worlds, be voluntary. But I see no problem with requiring high school and college students to do a few hours as a requirement for graduation. Let’s call it by a different name: Practical Civics. I, too, disagree with college credits and goodies as a reward. I say make it a requirement for graduation. Like gym class.

Judging by some of the attitudes here, many kids are not being “forced” to volunteer as I was initially by my parents and as your boy might have been. (I’m using “forced” facetiously as my parents “strongly suggested” and it was pretty clear I would do it.) Most kids, even the best of them, are a little selfish and self-centered without encouragement and guidance. It’s the nature of being a kid. A dose of volunteering, even through the cries of “I don’t wanna. I wanna play with my XBox” would serve to introduce them to something they might not do on their own.

With that small introduction to volunteerism, they could then make the choice for their adult lives to sit on their hands and do nothing for ever more. As Uborosic would do because he hates his neighbors.

But I’m betting, since I think most people are inherently good, the kids who had that little push from the mandatory requirement in high school, would end up being lifelong volunteers.

Again, I see a school requirement as being like gym class. The hope is that if you introduce kids to sports and physical activity, they’ll carry that through their lives. Some do, some don’t. But at least you exposed them to it.

You’re right, it’s not like slavery, it’s more like serfdom, where a certain amount of free labor was required every year by the local thug who dressed himself up with a title. Why should this be confined to students, if it is such a good idea why shouldn’t adults be required, pardon me, encouraged to work for free every year or else draw a financial penalty commensurate with their income, say a loss of homeowner tax credits . And like most social engineering the rich would be able to opt out, of course. There would be a heck of a lot less of such engineering if EVERYBODY actually had to participate in it. BTW, a certain number of the students forced to participate in this program are going to be raped or murdered every year, what moral responsibility do you take in those cases. Just part of the cost of doing business?

It is called the American Dream because anyone, from anywhere, could pursue whatever endeavor they chose to and with drive, determination and other tangible skills, they stood a reasonable chance of making an economic or personal success of themselves WITHOUT UNDUE INTERFERENCE FROM THE GOVERNMENT.

The Ameican dream, with caveats such as the evils of segregation, was never anything more or less. Anything else is political rhetoric.

The Obama program, which was modified from its original intent on the fly, was purely coercive and utterly counter-productive–to say nothing of being dubious legality.

I spend hundreds of hours each year volunteering, and I give thousands of dollars, and it is effective and fulfilling precisely because I do so of my own accord.

Anything else is work, and would be less rewarding and effective for everyone involved.

There was no shortage of rhetorical excesses directed at this idea from partisan bloggers, and some of the critiques were frankly stupid.

But they are correct on one big point: As originally proposed, this idea sucked.

Lets be clear on a final point: If this is what Obama has policy wise, he’s got crap. Every POTUS, and every governor, launches their terms with calls to volunteering and service.

Michelle is definitely old enough to recall the thousand points of light and the Clinton initiatives.

I know I’m nasty by nature, but were I in high school or college, I would avoid mandatory “service” like the plague. The idea does smack of Big Brother…
Further, were I dragooned into “service” I would do my level best to screw things up. Drop hot soup on the floor – or if truly nasty in the lap, dump food down the drain, find a nice spot for a nap,…need I go on? There are so MANY ways to screw things up, but good.
Better still, bring a good book or problem set along and amuse myself while avoiding work.
Let’s see what happens…this might prove to be truly funny.

Will says “One of the primary problems in our society is individual isolation and ennui,” yeah, I read the big, liberal crybaby Putnam, too, and what he cannot seem to grasp, as most leftist cannot grasp, is that the problem is more his problem, the problem that faces metropolitan Boston eggheads, not guys who actually go out bowling together after work.

When I have to hear things like, “It’s truly alarming that someone can hold this worldview without refraining from imbuing it with further falsehoods,” at dinner parties here in Hollywood, that sneering, exasperated superciliousness that anyone could even think such things, that look down from egghead Olympus at all us poor over-simplified barbarians (the last refuge is not patriotism, but complexity) for calling ‘em like we see ‘em, I think, fine, I’ll stay over here with boring, normal, society on this side, and you stay in your protected leftist enclave over there and let’s see who makes it in 50 years.

If you really believe that all parts of the US are suffering equally or are equally faced with tough problems, or that all communities are equally constructed, then you, sir, are a blind fool, and every leftist in America agrees with me based on where they choose to live when the have the money, and where they choose to send their kids to school. The primarily conservative communities will fight this stupid idea, because they do not want government to tell them what leftist charity their kids must work for in order graduate. They already go to school, play sports, work a part time job to pay for their own college and volunteer for their church. Simply, they take care of their own. This plan of Obama’s is from coming from the left to clean up the mess that is the consequence of their own bad ideas these past decades. Conceed the bad ideas, put them in the dustbin, then we can talk.

Let me make it very plain for you, Will, so you cannot possibly misunderstand. There are many communities in America, some are well organized and poor, some are well-organized and rich, some work and are productive and are wonderful places to live, some are disaster areas on par with a leaky reactor. Some are mostly white, some are not, some are mixed. I can go to any city or town in America, and in less than 1 week, get a fairly accurate reading of where along the spectrum that place is. If I look to the hard numbers, they will invariably reinforce what my own eyes already told me. I can drive to any part of LA and tell you if Obamacorps will be coming soon. I can also tell you that it will not make one whit of difference. It will make Will and Lisa feel good from a distance, and they will be lied to about it’s success by the people whose jobs depend on it, but it will fail utterly. Wait till the first kid from Granada Hills gets capped by a Grape St. Crip while he repairs a nice old lady’s roof.

For example, I already knew that the “community” in New Orleans was a fraud long before the flood, and that nobody in their right mind would live anywhere near those vile and crime infested neighborhoods. Further, nobody in their right mind would live there if they could put $15 down on a bus to anywhere. Anything that hit it was going to cause almost exclusively the worst in people living there, and they did not disappoint. If was the greatest outpouring of white guilt and black folly mingled together with lies that I have seen in my lifetime (I’m sure it’s still on your fragile conscience, Will). It was a colossal welfare shithole where generations of people lived pathetic lives in self-inflicted squalor because black race hustlers and oh-so-smart white eggheads insisted it was anything, anything, except worthy of condemnation.

There are subcultures in America that simply do not function, and this volunteer bullshit is just another way for the leftists to avoid saying openly that they are a mess. Obamacorps is just a way to put tinsel on a rotten block, a neighborhood that has some decent people stuck there, true, but I am not going to encourage anyone to volunteer to make it look better and sweep the real facts away with the trash thrown on every curb. And I’m through with the lazy, socioeconomic claptrap that the complexity departments have put forward as their explanation for everything that has gone wrong for 150 years; when you have 85% illegitimacy rates, “everything else follows, even in the midst of chaos.”

One last thing, poor people are, by and large, poor for a reason, and usually it is because they are stupid, violent, short-sighted, and self-destructive. This is not always the case, but I pay a lot of money here to stay away from the poor, and so does everyone else with a job and some self-respect. Show me urban poor people and I’ll show load music at all hours, blaring horns, shootings, bars on all the windows, illiteracy, violence as a constant norm, trash everywhere, no basic pride in anything, open sewage, grafitti everywhere, schools worse than prisons, drug dealing, etc, etc.

They can make me go work there, but I’ll make them regret it. Being forced to go there gives me an excuse to sabotage their operations by: 1. Counseling people not to go through with abortions, 2. Calling the police every time I observe something that might violate the law, 3. Being obnoxious toward paid staff. If they try to make me complicit in an abortion, I’ll do everything in my power to undermine them at every turn.

Lisa, the East LA barrios are communities if you consider drug-dealing, auto-theft, tax-evasion, and illigitimate children to be virtues. You were permitted there as long as you played docile and didn’t cause any fuss, like most passive liberals act in minority neighborhoods. Show some spine, open-self regard, and self confidence and you will get beat down fast. They are on their own, over there, and I am over here. I do not go there unless I have an escort from that neighborhood, and that doesn’t assure anything. I have been to parties there and am luck to escape with my life; it was a lot of work to drive away without bleeding down the street.

I live here because I make money here; I am fine with individualistic society and I don’t want any do-gooder socialist to take my time and money and spend it on their own folly. If I had kids, we’d all be somewhere else.

Also, if the military voted alone, the conservatives would win in a landslide; your story in anecdotal and not really reflective of what most military, brass and enlisted, current and past, feel about politics. Also, I get the feeling you heard what you wanted to hear; very different arguments between conservatives who disagree on foreign policy than leftist on the same. Ron Paul and Kucinich appear to agree, but for very, very different reasons.

My son did it because it was fun, most of the time!! And it allowed us to spend time together that didn’t cost us anything. My younger son was in to sports: baseball and football. By the end of the day between school, practice and homework it was time to go to sleep. At that time I was going to school full-time and working full-time. My weekends were spent at a ball field, doing chores and my homework. If there was a requirement for me and my youngest son to volunteer, we would have failed. Just because he didn’t do volunteer work he wasn’t a delinquent. He, like his older brother, is a wonderful young man that I am very proud of.

I could see where volunteering could be part of the curriculum in Social Studies or career development but not something forced on their own time. But we do need to realize that what is defined as a worthy cause by one group is not worthy by another, but then again, isn’t that something for the individual school board to decide? I just don’t see where this is a Federal government issue. This should be local.

Meaning I could choose any community outlet I desired to volunteer for.

Like ACORN? The local office of the Democratic Party? Some organization that claims to be ‘for the children’ but which directs its efforts only in neighborhoods of a certain ethnicity (and therefore political persuasion)?

These kinds of ‘community outlets’?

God forbid we encourage our high schoolers to care about their communities.

Spoken like someone who doesn’t have children. Perhaps the parents would rather decide what is and is not encouraged in their children.

Or do you think it’s the state’s job to inculcate certain ‘values’ into the heads of the poor little dears?

As a college student I would be overwhelmingly happy to hear that my other fellow students were also “forced” to do something that not only betters themselves but those around them.

Excellent.

Then you wouldn’t mind being required to attend a Christian Church on Sundays. Since some people say Christianity has allowed them to better themselves and therefore those around them (the way you say community service has bettered yourself and therefore others around you), you should therefore be required to attend church if your ‘community’ requires it.

And please, dearie, don’t blather on about the separation of church and state. I rather suspect you don’t want to go open up constitutional issues regarding compulsory service.

First of all don’t try to explain this awesome President Elect to theses hater’s, they wouldn’t get it if you wrote it with ABC’S or 123′s. The problem is they don’t want a BLACK MAN as President. But weather you want it or not it is what it is, and you hatere’s can’t do a damm thing about it. So get over it McCain couldn’t change it and neither can you hatere’s. So the more you talk about him the more we are Praying for him. GOD got OBAMA.

There was a poll of the US Military before the election. If their vote was the only vote that counted, we would be calling a Republican President-Elect. We have war planes breaking in half, transport planes that were manufactured in the 80′s and numerous other problems. Obama’s solution is to cut defense spending and use it for social causes. Isn’t the main purpose of our Federal Government to defend us not have us “make nice” with each other?

Well, I am in the minority it seems, but I agree with the author. Mandatory community service would be an issue for me, however the credit for college students seems like a great idea to me. For those needing some assistance for college (and really who doesn’t), this is something that could be done pretty easily and will benefit others as well.

I am a mother of four and again, I believe community service at the middle school level and high school levels is great. I think that organizing volunteers in a meaningful way helps us all.

My views are traditionally conservative. I am much more in favor of volunteer programs that will benefit community, as opposed to funding govt programs to attempt the same goal. Let’s face it, you will not be FORCED to volunteer. I think whether your politics are left or right, it is time to take a stand and participate. Let’s fix what is broken and stop just watching. Evaluate what good can come of a proposal such as this one and forget who it comes from if you are not a fan.

To Lisa Paul, and to the many others who agree with the Newsspeak of mandatory volunteerism,

I have the right to indoctrinate my child. The Federal Government does not. I allow the government to teach my child the basic tools for gaining knowledge such as reading, writing and the maths. The fine development of those skills are acceptable lessons. The indoctrination of what labor, thoughts, beliefs or the acceptable expressions of these activities is not the role of the Federal or even State Government.

Civil liberties are built into our government in order to protect the individual from democracy. In a pure democracy the majority could vote to have a minority silenced, forced to labor, or murdered. The genius of the Founding Fathers was to comprehend that even if some people managed to gain the reigns of power they should not be allowed to impose whatever values those who won an election hold, onto those who lost or didn’t run.

I loath community service. It is against my belief system called Anti-Cvetchianism. I know many Anti-Cvetchianists who despise their community and would rather not serve it. The only community service I deem bearable is the service of highlighting the stupidity of Cvetchians. I will serve my community when the opportunity to highlight Cvetchians arrives. Until then I will evoke my inalienable right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness as I see fit rather then the paternal set of standards you hold of life, liberty and happiness, and I quote,

“We certainly had compulsory volunteerism. Even before I got to schools where it was required for graduation, my parents MADE me do it. I kicked and screamed, until I did it, then found out how great it was.”

Guess what, I participated in community service and I hated it. You are right. Real America comes in many shapes, sizes, colors etc… and this anti-Cvetchian happens to hate community service, altruism, servitude and the ignoble dullards who have not the grace of the anti-Cvetch and the responsible individualism that comes with it.

Liberty is the personal space in which others will not dare enter. I want the Fed out of my face.

Why is it that people who seem to like to volunteer or who want their kids to volunteer, seem so easily inclined to use the power of the federal government to make other people to the same? Why not just go about doing what you’ve been doing and nix this preposterous, dishonest and unworkable plan. I don’t want to help the poor, OK? The poor are a**holes. And I don’t want my nieces and nephews working for free; I want them to understand that working for pay and being good at it, and working hard and doing a damn fine job is vastly more important to the health of society than giving time to some government charity run by leftist idiots.

Here is the insidious catch, and another commentaor noticed it: the socialists always try to control the stamps of approval, the certification scam that allows you to graduate from anything, the diploma. Want to work bussing tables for yourself to pay for your own way in life, sorry you have to serve the poor and the under-served instead, and if you don’t we won’t give you the diploma. Want to get into a good school? Well, that is run by leftist assholes, too, in fact, the whole admissions board is run by a cadre of ultra PC leftists who look for all the right catch-phrases about diversity and service, and look to see how much hard work you did for their pet causes. These are not inventors and businessmen and the people who make the things that the world wants to buy, they are the government workers with dubious degrees who think the world would be best run by university professors.

So if you don’t get out there and clean up trash in Compton, we’re not going to let you graduate from HS, or let you into a “good” college because you didn’t show enough spirit to serve others. The soft power of leftist compulsion: if you don’t play along we will make it as difficult as possible to get where you want to go. And this drivel from the same people who have allowed the public school to degenerate beyond repair. You can graduate illiterate, yes, but at least serve meals to old people whose families will not care for them, but will still come by from time to time to steal from them, and then will will pass you through the university illiterate as well.

I think the more Obama and his ilk yak up the community service thing, the more most people who savor their individualism will find him out of touch with the essence of what America is about. The notion of community service sounds like such a smoothie. But it is disturbing: why does anyone owe their community anything? Does the community have some sort of overreaching consciousness that it actually believes it is doing good for its citizens? The fact is that a community is just a bunch of people acting out of their own self interest to enjoy their lives; they may or may not value others in their communities, and may or may not be inclined to help any of them: that is strickly their business. Forcing people to serve their community is slavery — it shows the government owns the person it is forcing. If the person resists, what happens? He/she is penalized, possibly jailed. That isn’t self-ownership. As far as I know, I am constantly paying my community anyway, with pretty steep taxes, for things I may or may not agree with. I have no choice in this matter, other than to move to someplace else where I will also pay taxes. If you pay taxes, and then Obama wants you to donate time — just how much of your life is your’s?

Ms. Attitute, we already spend more money that Croesus on social causes since the 1960′s and have very little to show for it; maybe the greatest couterproductive waste of money ever; the ripple of a million unintended consequences, almost all deleterious. Read Charles Murray’s “Losing Ground” if you doubt me. As the leftists took over running the culture, things fell apart fast.

Those who do not like Obama are relentless in thier ignorance simply to take a shot at him. Just one example–the requirement of community service for federal money is equated with slavery. Is that not the way business is now done for students receiving money from the military while they attend college, do they not owe years of service and is that not true of the men and women who attend the academies? Of course the answer is yes. And finally, it is time for all of us to recognize we owe something to this great country and some community service is a viable option, preferably madatory. Lets make it a community again with individuals functioning in that context.

To me, community service should be something that YOU CHOOSE to do…..not something that is required of you. When you make it a requirement, you just took the self pride out of performing community service….or look at it another way…people that have gotten in trouble with the law are required to perform so many hours of community service…..as a punishment. I don’t quite understand Obama’s reasoning behind this. Why don’t you make it a requirement for people receiving welfare….that would make more sense wouldn’t it?

There are thousands upon thousands of high school and college students, as well as adults, doing some form of community service right now.

Vol-un-tary community service. Not Mandatory.

People do not volunteer unless they think it is worth their time. People would do mandatory service just to put in time. This kind of difference, which is part of human nature, seems to be lost on a lot of people. Like taxing to help the poor – instead of actually giving to help the poor, in which case the poor might be held responsible to change their behavior.

Why cant people please just give Obama a real chance. Look at the past 8 years can we say these have been great years,the answer no.If we look back over the past 8 years Dems. have not been in control we know who was in control the majorty of the years. So lets the man at least a chance. The next time you want to complain about someone just take a good look in the mirrow. You may just want to change your thoughts the next time.

I’m a bit surprised that no one has mentioned Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.” The basic premise of the book–full citizenship rights, particularly the franchise and the holding of public office depended upon the individual completing voluntary service to the commonweal–made it a favorite of the Right after its publication and at the same time the bete noir of the Left (at least on campuses with which I was acquainted. The idea has much to recommend it in that one must prove by action over time a will to put self-interest and comfort behind the common good. NB that the service did not have to be in the military but had the strong potential of being far more unpleasant than raking leaves or delivering meals.

Having said that, I have to admit I am conflicted about “compulsory” volunteerism. The Libertarian who lives in me is horrified. At the same time, demonstrating through time and action an ability to put the interests of community first is attractive. I square the circle by relying upon persuasion not the force of the state whether that force is applied by carrots or sticks.

Finally, as a first year college student listening to JFK’s inagaural address, I shuddered with the clearly Fascist overtones of asking what one can do for one’s country. This put me in a distinct minority at the time, but I have seen no rational reason to change my initial emotional reaction. The stance taken by the incoming administration caused the shudder to come again.

OK – what is next? There are a lot of things Obama might think are good. Will he make us to those too?

I have a better idea. Leave us alone to determine what we think is good for us to do with our time. And I would encourage you to open your eyes and see who is already doing the good things on their own that you would make everyone do.

I dont see what is wrong with community service. You are all crazy. Why shouldn’t we help each other. College aid or no College aid the only way this country will get better is if we all pitch in. You all are complaining of the “socialist” we elected well if you are that pist and worried then why not get off your computer and do something about it because I am sure writing on here about all your crazy close minded ideas is doing a whole lot of good.

That’s the trouble with a lot of Americans of today…they want something for nothing. This country is on the verge of collapsing and all these self-centered, egotistical, spoiled, dullards can do is think about themselves. I can’t believe that anyone could consider serving their community slavery. Americans have gone mad and I am beginning to see what people in other countries are seeing about people in the United States. Based on a lot of the responses I have read, I couldn’t believe how dense and stupid some of the comments are.

I try my best not to be negative and it is extremely hard when there are so many negative, hate-filled, racist, self-serving people all around me. If I could put all of you in spaceships and send you all to an isolated planet in another solar system, where you all could hate each other, bash each other, and/or destroy one another…than maybe, just maybe THIS planet will stand a greater chance of survival.

you guys are all drama kings and queens, 50 hours of community service is less than an hour a week, for middle school and high school students, 100 hours a week is less than two hours a week for a college student, i am a college student and i did a lot of volunteering in my years, i even did americorp- 25-35 hours a week which was pretty hard because i was a fulltime college student at the time, a lot of students get a govt grant that is called work study and they have to actually work 15 hours a week to get a once a month paycheck, also this only gives them between 2000- 2500 per semester, I think any student would perefer to do community service instead of work study- so shove it you old farts!!!

I agree that communities throughout the United States are extemely complex, both geographically & socioeconomically; however, I must disagree with your previous post stating that these communities can be distinguished along partisan lines. Far be it from me to be the judge of your perspicacity in reading the “spectrum” that exists in various communities, but for you to slander the weakest amongst us with such a natural vitriol I’m concerned that you’ve blinded yourself to the systemic problems that exist and must be continually fought for (even if it is a losing battle).

The core problem begins in the household and is perpetuated through ignorance, fear, anomie, and desperation. Not growing up with two parents, or having parents suffering from unemployment, drug addiction, or any number of problems can have a profound effect on progeny. This in turn breeds apathy, distrust, and an enhanced anomie that can destroy communities–red or blue. And while the problem certainly cannot be wholly solved by the federal government, it’s a greater injustice to stand by the wayside while passing harsh criticism along the way. If Obama wants to provide incentives for fighting the good fight: strengthening, creating, or establishing stewardship in the community, I see this as a low risk, high reward policy.

As for the assumptions about my political orientation and fragile conscience, keep them up because assumptions get you nowhere and I can do this all day long.

I agree with Michele Catalano. It is an insult for us to attribute the call for the mandatory raising of specialized corps for various civil, defense and social functions as “Communist.” How utterly droll of you right-wingnuts.

Actually, it is more fascist, but the good kind, not the bad kind. Mussolini was a progressive, daring thinker. And Hitler did some good things, didn’t he? – 40 hour work week, people’s car, labor reform, helped the economy. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Lots of bitter people here, from the same socio-political group that turned “doing good” into something dirty and despised. Yet these are essentially the same people who claim to be followers of and believers in Christ, who said of doing good to others, “Whatsoever ye have done unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Yes, he was talking about feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and even visiting people who are in prison.
I don’t think you can have it both ways.

For those of you who are having tantrums about the election: You lost, and part of the reason was cynicism, greed, and the abandonment of compassion. How long would you have to be in school to recognize that clue?

For all of those people complaining about mandatory requirements for community service, please stop because it’s already been established this is not the case. So, please calm down, you won’t have to lift a finger if you don’t want to.

Also, I’d be interested to know if a draft, working along the same logic many are positing (mandatory service = slavery), would constitute slavery? I personally do not think so (I’m 25 and would certainly be a candidate if it was mandated), but I’d be interested to hear your take.

As a sophomore in high school, I was required to perform 60 hours of community service in order to go on to 11th grade. I had no problem doing it, in large part because I got to choose in what way I served. I spent a few hours helping out a church (of which I was not a member), a few hours aiding my local Girl Scout troop (of which I had never been a member), a few hours ringing a Salvation Army bell, a few hours helping clean up after a tornado ravaged a community on the other side of the state…

I had all year to do these services, and finished with more than enough hours. It’s amazing what all constitutes doing “community service”, and as a broke college student, I still like helping out wherever I can. If that’s Marxism, then count me in.

obama isn’t requiring people to do community service simply as a means of existence…
he’s offering REWARDS AND INCENTIVES FOR COLLEGE KIDS – so instead of paying for college with money (which they may not have), they have the OPTION of helping out around their communities instead (which almost ANYONE can do)
growing up, i racked up around 100 hours of community service a year without really trying to (one year over 250)
was i involved with the communist party?
nah…
just boy scouts
and church
nothing as UNAMERICAN as that, right?

Community service, unless it is the direct result of a court sentence, is to be decided upon, and accomplished, by the individual, NEVER mandated by the upcoming, or any other administration. God forbid the opposite! We’re a nation of liberties, and laws to guarantee them, and opportunities. Even now when many cry afoul and claim we are at the end of the world. But we’d rather remember that “individual” is–and will–always be FIRST than “community”. Matters compulsory, even service predicated with the best of intentions, won’t ever work. Just try the opposite and you’ll see it.

Compulsory service is the slippery slope of slavery. You insult intelligence by not recognizing it. What do you tell my two daughters in college that work nearly 80 hours a week to pay for their college, do VOLUNTEER in pet advocacy groups and women abuse shelters and take 15 credits of classes per semester? Oh well now you will have to find the time to do 100 hours a year compulsory service to get your lousy 400 dollar pell grant? But we will be happy to pay $4000. of your tuition, unfortunately due to the terrible economy and the rising costs of education we must raise your tuition by hmmm $4000.00(this is already happening-per report of 7% increase of college tuition for 2008-2009). Sure they may count the hours my daughters already volunteer, but compulsory/opting out and losing funding is a frighteningly slippery slope to tread.

you are an IDIOT…this is STILL the United States of America and the president elet cannot FORCE us into “community service” unless you call it for what it is..MARXISM or shall we say DICTATORSHIP!
he wants ‘community service’ then fine, its a volunteer thing and the first ones that should be FORCED to “volunteer” are all the idiotic greedy liberal pigs who sold out 200 years of freedom for a measly welfare check that O-BOMB-US has promised…our forefathers are surely ROLLING IN THERE GRAVES!!!

Community service????? Why do we need that when the neo-cons can just invent another government based department that we Americans can just spend our tax dollars on ie: Homeland security? So your little Biff and Buffy have to do community service….. too bad. Maybe that will give them some compassion about fellow human beings and they will probably be a much better person, but I doubt it with a-hole parents like you. Screw the poor, underprivileged, the aging people. I hope you need help someday and the answer is no. What goes around …. comes around!

If community service wasn’t a mandatory part of school how many of your kids would do it. It’s the people that believe they are above community service that think it’s salvery because you can’t stand the thought ofsomeone telling your snot nosed kid what to do afterall your kids are above that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with going out and helping keep your community clean and help others maybe volunteer in a homeless shelter. This way instead of your kids grow up snobby like you maybe they will be well rounded appreciate what they have and realize there is more to being an American then having daddy pamper them there entire lives. Finally if more people helped out in the communities maybe this owuldn’t be mandatory everyone should do there part to keep there community beautiful.

Don’t some colleges and universities required community service? A lot of people do community service not because the want to but because they have to in order to get into the university that they want, and that does not make them slaves.

Where did all the kiddies come from? Did a sociology professor just require her students to comment on Pajamas Media for credit? Or did some random teacher who works at a high school that requires community service just tell her students that they could count commentary on an Internet discussion board as ‘community service’ (so long as she approves of the comments).

Vent much? When was the last time that you were in a college or high school? Here in MA all graduates are *required* to complete *some* community service. Get a grip folks. Don’t make it sound like slavery. Do you know what community service is or are you too busy blogging?

Hmm last time I check this is one of the more popular blog sites on the web and is not hard to find. I hope you didn’t think you were somehow on a site that was hidden from views that did not match your own.

I thought the whole point of conservatism is that we left things like service out of the government’s hands. If we are going to point fingers at bush’s compassionate conservatism for creating big government and being part of the reasons why republicans lost at the polls, we shouldn’t be endorsing big government the sequel.

to CHUCK-
I didnt have time earlier to comment on everything but my main point is that if I could get a 4000 credit for only doing a 100 hours of community service it would be a lot better than working one or two jobs to stay in school. Right now I work about 28 to 32 hours a week and I have 15 units, I still struggle to pay the bills and all i make is about 1000 a month, you old guys dont realize how hard it is to go to college if you dont have money. Why dont you do the math if you are SO SMART- tell me how i can go to school without working if i get no money from my parents and only 8,500 a year in grants. I go to San Jose State University, which is in California. My registration fees are 2,000 a semester, and books cost about 500 a semester, dont forget that I need to have a place to stay and food to eat. People dont realize that alot of students work very hard while in school because they have to, if Obama put through legislation that could give me an extra 4000 tax credit just for a measly 100 hours of community service I think that would be wonderful for me and all the other college students who have to work as well!!!

If you’re not doing anything sit in a courtroom and note where they apply mandatory community service.

There’s nothing wrong with community service and it is a learning experience for the young student. It has a positive affect, as a voluntary thing…I’m not so sure otherwise. That depends on the kid and the program.

I’ve always found Obama’s choice of language as ‘curious’, however. For someone that is articulate you expect a certain measured,precise use of language (especially for a lawyer) I wonder what the options would be under his program.

I haven’t heard too many lawyers use the phrase ‘what I meant was’. but he seems to alot.

Those of you who point to other nations’ practices miss the point – those nations and their peoples are not the United States of America, did not fight a Revolutionary War against their former sovereign in order to assert their right to liberty, do not have the liberties guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States of America, did not fight a bloody Civil War and then amend the Constitution to abolish involuntary servitude. They may be admirable places, but they are not the United States, and their practices are irrelevant. And, by the way, forced labor (the corvee) was one of the peasants’ grievances cited in the French Revolution — this involuntary labor thing has been an issue for a long time.

Those of you who cite military drafts also miss the point. The Constitution specifically empowers Congress to raise and maintain armies, and from colonial times we have had both the organized and unorganized militia, consisting of the able-bodied men of military age, who have been held to have a duty to defend the country in time of war. There has never been a parallel federal power to raise and maintain a conscripted labor corps.

Other than the Cold War, the United States has not resorted to conscription except in times of massive war: the Civil War (only after recruitment lagged), WWI and WWII. (I remind one and all that the Selective Service Act passed in 1940 by only 1 vote)

Those of you who tout community service as a good thing – which it is, if truly voluntary — also miss the point that state action and private action are not the same. While their may be private sanctions if one violates private taboos (e.g. if you don’t do your community service to the church, your neighbors may snub you), there is no LEGAL COERCION exercisable against you. HOWEVER, fail to comply with a state requirement to report for conscription, you could be jailed or denied other benefits available to citizens, just as you can be jailed and your property seized if you refuse to pay taxes.

People, this isn’t hard. There’s also no where to hide from the state, unless you emigrate. It’s power will be used to hunt you down and compel you to do what the state wants. In private life, if you don’t like one community’s privately imposed requirements for behavior, you can move. Or, if they actually violate your rights, you can use the power of the state to compel others to respect your rights.

When my ancestors and those of many others founded this nation after the Revolution, they envisioned a limited state, where the ability to use the coercive power of the state against individuals was very limited. It was the only way liberty could be ensured then, and remains so today!

If an altruistic act confers a single iota of independence to the recipient, that benefits the benefactor just a bit by having to impart less altruism the next time, and the next time, and so on, until the beneficiary becomes self sufficient and no longer needs a benefactor for support. The tiny imperfection of selfishness in the altruistic act becomes altruism’s undoing, and the dependent’s liberation from dependency. The more selfish, the less altruistic the act, the faster the dependent acquires independence, and the sooner the benefactor can resume full focus on his or her own independent sustenance.

Consequently 100% pure altruism, meaning 0% benefit for the benefactor, is a state that finds the recipient as helpless, or moreso, after the altruistic gesture, and chronically dependent on repeated doses of equal or greater levels of altruism. In other words, altruism is social and economic suicide, permanently yoking benefactor to parasitic recipient. It is a system more rapidly drained to self-destruction by the presence of yet a third party to the social economic equation, a government, which, in order to sustain its existence, also draws upon the benefactor’s resources and thereby enabling itself to administer the role of altruism’s enforcer.

As the above illustrates, truth and reality are far less complicated means by which to grasp, master, and attain honest, sustainable peace and sanity within yourself and with others in the world, as opposed to the all the other convoluted and chaotic intellectual, social, and economic gyrations and institutions that obscure truth and reality.

“but for you to slander the weakest amongst us with such a natural vitriol I’m concerned that you’ve blinded yourself to the systemic problems that exist and must be continually fought for (even if it is a losing battle).”

Will, I have been poor most of my life and do you know what the worst part is? Other poor people. The best reason not to be poor (or what passes for poor here in the US) is to steer clear of having to live, every day, with the appaling behavior of the people who are poor.

I know all about poor, Will, and have no interest in listening to the sociology dept drone on about the complex causes; I know all the complex causes, they’ve only been repeated in a thousand different ways since Comte (but dumbed down each succeeding generation into less and less plausible theories). The “progressive” left created the lions share of this disaster (and yes, it was created, it didn’t just happen, and it largely happened in my lifetime) and now they are the same people now pretending to fix it; it’s like watching Barney Frank and Chris Dodd repair the financial mess.

I do not take lessons from the poor, and I will not be negotiating with a hoodlum over how much of my money he’s going to get from me (the Mayor Lindsey plan of eternal political cowardice). I’m not interested in a dialogue; it’s a monologue or nothing; I hold most of the cards. LA gets along fine by fencing it in and counting on the tyranny of distance. I’m not helping unless the harsh criticism is heard loud and clear: no adulteration, no softening, no newscaster to dillute it. As long as there isn’t even enough courage to state the obvious: that some parts of Los Angeles are much better to live in than others because the people in some parts of Los Angeles are better to be around than the people in other parts of Los Angeles, then I see no point of going forward, we disagree on reality.

I geninely feel for the poor slobs who are stuck there and are trying to get out, but I’m not going to lift a finger or spend a dime unless it’s understood that if you want my time and money, it’s on my terms, not the terms of the people who have failed and failed and failed while spending trillions only to see almost no discernable results. But that’s not going to happen; not in my lifetime. Same idiots, socialists, statists, black race hustlers, and identity activists of all stripes creating government jobs programs for losers who went to college to get a degree in Chicana/o studies to help the “poor people”, poor people who secretly despise the activist frauds who come to their homes. Obamacorps still has to have people run it, and I look around at all the people he has worked with in the past and I know where this is headed. Thank God, we’re broke or this might just happen.

My daughter has required mandatory “volunteer” service required for graduation. The only reason I accept this in any way at all is that she is at a charter school and we did, in fact, *choose* to be at that school.

The difference is choice.

Always.

Conscripted labor by any other name is conscripted labor. It is a chore. It is an imposition. It is something to get over and done with if not avoided outright.

Our young people are not being taught how rewarding volunteering can be, because THEY ARE NOT VOLUNTEERS.

“Service work has been a Blessing in my life.GOd has Blessed my soul and i’ve seen Prayers come true.Helping others of all walks of life is a gift that i’ve been given.And i thank GOD for the gift.”

I agree with you completely. Service to others in the name of God is one of the highest virtues and thousands of us do that on a daily basis. But there is a vast difference between true volunteerism and another big government program. One is freely given and the other is paid work. Thanks for your post. It is a beacon of light in this conversation and God bless you.

By the way, I hope all you rich liberals out there are going to pay a bunch of taxes because Joe Biden said it’s your patriotic duty to do so and I am waiting for my share of the free stuff Obama promised me.

Lisa, I have lived in 11 US cities and have traveled all over the US by thumb, bus, car, motorcycle and rig, and know a bit about the United States. I have been poor a good deal of my life and have lived in neighborhoods with the poor, often in places that would make most hand-wringer liberals race to the on ramps. My working class credentials are unassailable. I know a good bit about the poor here and in the rest of the world, and I can say with the absolute conviction, and before my etching of Swift, that they are, by and large, violent, short-sighted, boring, coarse, unimaginative morons of the first order. Most are poor because they are stupid, yes.

But in parts of Mexico City, for example, there is real poverty, Peru even worse. Asia beyond words. Here, poverty is a joke, compared to the past and to most of the current world, there is no poverty in America, unless you have no knowledge of either history or the real world outside our borders.

You haven’t heard the argument because you are a liberal who doesn’t permit herself to hear unadulterated speech without the constraints of your political and cultural social set. You censor out the opinions you don’t like and use the cultural institutions like the schools to make sure they stay out whether they are true of not. But you are losing the battle for information. Lots of people, Victorians to the current time, have been terribly poor growing up and concluded the same thing about the poor; that’s what so many poor people are so driven and ambitious: they never want to go back.

Lastly, and this is the clincher: if the poor are so great, how come, in every city in the country, there are huge houses, at amazing prices, going vacant in every poor neighborhood, but the rich, white (with a light sprinkle of some professional liberal minorities) neighborhoods are ten, and sometimes twenty times higher for less space, and yet I know of nobody from the leftist enclaves who profess to care so much about the poor who would ever consider relocating? Because they are all LYING about the poor because they, like you, are afraid to be shunned by the right thinking hypocrites from the rich, university set. Rich, white liberals want the government to do something to help in the holler, barrio, and ‘hood because they won’t, well, not unless it’s a ribbon cutting event for a new cultural center and the mayor will be there.

I didnt have time earlier to comment on everything but my main point is that if I could get a 4000 credit for only doing a 100 hours of community service it would be a lot better than working one or two jobs to stay in school. — Candy

You have a choice. Obama’s plan, as originally put forward, doesn’t give you a choice.

However, I’ll offer a counter-plan….

Mandatory Governmental Service.

Upon graduation or leaving high school, you are immediately enrolled in the government for a period of 2 to 4 years.

The first several months is equivalent to the US Army’s ‘boot camp’.

After that, depending upon your government assessed aptitude, you are sent to advanced training such a clerical, administrative, logistical, educational, infantry, etc., etc., etc…..

Depending on the arduous nature of the ‘skill’ you go into, you spend 2 to 4 years working for the government. Afterwords , should you survive, you get the GI Bill Benefits I enjoyed.

Your right community service is a good thing, but when the President (AKA massa)tells us we have to do it and we don’t have a choice, it would be slavery, he would gain control over the youth of the country and the youth doing the “volunterring” would be the slave. Maybe hold back a deploma if you didn’t finish your hours. It would be easy to do since he’s in with the teachers unions. The thought that the government could come into our homes and tell a parent what thier child will have to do is Marxism. It sounds good at first, what harm is there its volunteer work, ask the Nazi youth what it was like being forced to join, it sure did sound good at first!

Mandatory community service by students or those of us under the age of 18–at least–certainly is not slavery any more than requiring school attendance. Many countries in the world require some form of national service by their youth which benefits the well being of their country as well as developing their characters.

And Kirk, I do not believe for one second you voted for “the other guy.” If dissent is the highest form of patriotism, which I’ve been told for 8 years it is, I plan to be the most patriotic SOB on the planet. And if that means opposing the dear leaders socialist plans for the next 4 years with the same degree of ferocity the left villified Bush for 8 years, then so be it.

Matt, I’m not sure why you would doubt that I voted for McCain, but if it would help to browse through my collected posts on McCain, you can find them here. There are 15 posts, dating back to August — a lot of trouble to go to if I’m just trying to pose as a McCain supporter.

Obama Derangement Syndrome is every bit as inappropriate as Bush Derangement Syndrome. By all means criticize him strongly when you disagree — I will do the same. But to take the position that everything he’s going to do for the next 4 or 8 years is ALREADY worthy of criticism is… well… deranged.

A whole heck of a lot of people were complaining about the trend to require mandatory volunteering as a requirement for graduation from high school. It was by NO means and idea everyone loved *then* and now hates because it’s Obama and not someone else promoting it.

If you want to go volunteer someplace, do that.

But forcing someone else to “volunteer” is simply not anything but conscription and forced labor… which doesn’t sound nearly as warm and fuzzy.

And more than that… if the goal is to promote volunteering, this is the way to end it forever.

What person in their right mind would bother to work at a shelter when those college kids are supposed to do that? What high school or college kid in their right mind would continue after their forced labor requirement is satisfied?

We’ve reached a fundamental impass, and I will respectfully disagree with your stance. The final thing I’d like to add, though, is I think our impass lies in our perceptions of others. With regards to the collectivity of poor people, and I’m assuming here (a dangerous thing), you look at them as a static set of people, doomed to repeat mistakes with no hope of fundamental cultural, social, intellectual, or economic change. Perhaps, your right and my naiveity prevents me from withdrawing the belief that were all dynamic beings capable of change–for the better or worse. I’d like to know what you think.

When you read some of these comments we now know why the rest of the world is so ahead of us. The narrow, blinkered thinking, the selfishness that consume our lives all come out in these blogs. No wonder American got Obama. The Bible says we get the government we deserve and rightly so. People it is not Socialism or Communism if we give Community Service. It is just simply a way of giving back to society. If it is tied to getting a degree or preparing one for their chosen profession then the better for it.

Isa, you espouse the narrowing thinking on some when you say the man is an Arab. Go to school and do the community service. You will surely be the better for it!

candy: “you old guys dont realize how hard it is to go to college if you dont have money.”

You have no idea, my dear. Many of us who are older professionals today worked our way through college, graduate or professional schools (or all three)…. In my case, I worked my way through graduate school, and later went to a top 10 law school full time, worked 30-40 hours a week all three years, and was still a law review editor and near the top of my class. That’s a lot harder than taking 15 units at San Jose State. Oh, and I spent a few years on active duty in the Army, so I’ve done my “community service.”

I don’t get it. Kristine (#27 and 33) makes the perfectly valid point that other presidents have also encouraged volunteerism. Respondents chastise her for not understanding the difference between mandatory and voluntary — as if Obama is proposing a mandatory plan. Regardless of what may have briefly been posted on his transition, the program as currently described is voluntary.

Hmmm. Requiring college students to give 100 community service hours in order to receive a $4000 tax credit. Sounds like a high paying gov job to me. And why only 100 hours? Requiring something in order to get something is not volunteering neither is it community service. Even if the “job” serves the community (Think of the Police or Fire Departments). It is however employment or trade or bartering. It’s like… I have eggs. You have no money. You paint my fence. I give you eggs.

Why not start this requirement with welfare recipients… could you imagine the outcry from the left!!! “What!?! You expect poor people and the disabled to log in 100 hours a month of some kind of service to get their check / stamps!?! Ugh. The indignity of it all!” Why can’t a disabled person read to nursing home residents or… whatever? Now I know this would not be possible in all circumstances. So I appologize in advance to anyone who might take my comment personnal. But for the vast majority of welfare recipients? Why not!?! My neighbor is on disability for migraines! Yet it doesn’t stop her from working in her garden or throwing the ball for her dog or mowing her lawn. HELL I have suffered with migraines most of my life, sometimes debilitating, yet I work. Let’s close this loophole first!

I think there is a balance to be struck here. (so far) the requirement is NOT for EVERY college student to contribute 100 hours. Only those who wish to receive the tax credit. I don’t see anything wrong with that. You give something, you get something. Employer / Employee relationship.

What we need to be wary of is when / if it becomes compulsory service in order to have the “privilege” to attend college. And telling the student what organization they will “volunteer” with regardless of the student’s ethics or personal beliefs.

And yes, very disconcerting is this whole Civilian National Defense issue. I can’t agree more that it totally smacks of Cuba, USSR, and Nazi Germany. And then if this CND is rolled into the mix? Look out for civilian spies. No I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t think our Gov had anything to do with the attacks of 9/11. But if we don’t look to history, then yes, we are bound to repeat it.

I would like a list of “public” high schools that require community service for graduation. Not private, public. A list of public schools recieiving all of their funding from public funds that requires community service.

Bobby, My kid did it in elementary school, not because he was required, but because he wanted to. As the kids grow older they become less interested, have other activities etc. (Boy Scouts excepted)unless they aspire to get a MSW. (And don’t trivialize because of his age because I never said what he did)

The point is if it’s not voluntary, who gets the benefit and why? Who makes that decision? Don’t forget the work churches do for the community. Will that count ? I believe it does when you apply for college (at least one way or the other)

I think you have an attitude problem or you’re ignorant. It could be that effect Boris was chirping about. But I didn’t take many sociology courses in school so I guess I wouldn’t know much about it. I wonder when this topic will be tied to AGW…carbon credits for community service…it’s probably in the plan.

community service is NOT slavery. It is in fact what this country needs. If young people learn to serve the communities in which they live maybe, just maybe there will be an end to all the gang violence and hate crimes going on in this country.

All you people out there that donate time and talent to your churches, BSA, GSA, Camp Fire, Sports teams as a coach, Civil Air Patrol, USCG Aux, VFW, American Legion, families or businesses that volunteer to clean the highways, foster grandparents who volunteer at schools to help kids read, youth who read to the disabled or elderly do YOU feel like a SLAVE? Or do you derive great pleasure out of HELPING people and your community? I think its the latter. I feel privileged to serve my community in a multitude of positions. Its the all in the attitude people.

You are correct, there are Conservative, Libertarian, Democrat and Marxist Cvetchians. My comment is not a partisan one. Sorry if I misspelled Cvetch seeing as I don’t have a Yiddish keyboard and I doubt it would have been effective to spell the word in that language. But you see, it worked. You managed to make out my inference. Yet, intelligence and wisdom seldom meet.

Forced work for the State is servitude. If the plan is no longer mandatory (which you wouldn’t have had a problem with, according to your own comments about how your parents mandated your volenteerism) then the plan still has many problems with it. Our education system is broken. It is common knowledge that a college education today has the value a high school diploma used to have. There are such a number of factors in this devaluation in the American education system. Every one of those factors is made more profound by State involvement in education. A diploma is meant to certify that one who has earned that paper can read, write and do basic maths. Beyond that they grasp the rudimentary pedantry of science and language. Why should a high-School diploma also signify that said person gave 50 hours of their time to a Federally approved service? I have other questions. What happens if the student who worked their 50 hours decides they don’t want or need a college education. What will their reward for the service be, pride in a job well done? What of the fact that college educations are now so expensive that we are reaching a critical mass were

A) One generally needs State or bank aid to go to college.
B) That the value of the education has diminished even as the cost rises.
C) That even as taxpayers are subsidizing State Schools these schools are making money on sports, medical research, and publications while the taxpayer gets no return for his contribution?

What makes you think that once this $4000 reward becomes the expected norm for college applicants that the tuitions won’t rise by said $4000? A college education has risen in cost by over 300% the rate of inflation in the last 20 years.

Finally, I may serve my country but the State is a different matter. My country is not a bureaucratic mess. My country is a people, rivers, mountains, parks, trees, cities and principles of many shapes, sizes, colors and whatnot. I will work to defend and protect my country. I will work to aid my fellow countrymen. I will contribute as I see fit not by dictate which holds a pitifully valued high school diploma as reward.

I remember watching Obama talking about neighborliness and he said something to the effect of, “If I have enough and I see my neighbor struggle then isn’t helping them just being neighborly”?

Yes, I agree, if I have enough and I see my neighbor struggle then I will assist my neighbor. Hell, I even leave room for the very real possibility that my neighbor does have enough and even then I help (I help them moving furniture, I invite them over for meals, I watch their kids when they want to go out). Its neighborly because I choose to help. When the government decides that I have enough and takes what I have (my time or my property) so as to give to my neighbor, that is Socialism and its illiberal.

I didn’t vote for McCain because I thought he was a great choice. I voted for McCain because I thought his vision of America was a more liberal one then Obama’s. McCain likes government too much for my taste but in comparison to the alternative…. I thought his general instinct for liberty is superior to Obama’s. This “community service” issue is one manifestation of just how right we are about Obama’s Socialist instinct. I do not subvert my individuality to the State, period. Thats not a Kvetch. Its a statement. I just want to remind you and the Obomotons who come by in for their Troll’s meal, “Dissent is Patriotic”. So, don’t expect us to shut up just because we lost an election. In my opinion we would have lost the election even if McCain had won.

TDelaney:
Show me one example of how he has personally EVER helped anyone!! We know you cannot because this guy is a total hypocrite!!

LOL! FOr all your access to the Internet do you not read any International news? There’s a famous incident which was not brought up by any Obama team but by the lady in question about how Obama helped her at the airport. And this way way back when he was still a student. The lady’s parents wrote him a letter upon learning of his presidential candicacy.

Why are people intent on bashing someone whom you didn’t vote for when we should all come together now? Freedom my ass if you’re all so selfish.

Can everyone take a deep breath and remember that Obama is NOT calling for mandatory community service. He’s offering scholarship money, etc. in exchange for it. Don’t want that money, don’t do any volunteer work. Done. Freedom restored.

However, Obama is highly recommending that one way to get ourselves out of this hole would be for us to volunteer. Or stop sitting on the couch eating Cheetos and screaming along with Bill O’Riley that someone else is to blame for everything.

The time you’re wasting screaming about a program that is NOT being advocated by a government that is not even in power yet could have been spent in some volunteer work.

And if you despise people who are “so stupid as to be poor” as Uburoisic does, for your VOLUNTARY service, you can clean up the park in your gated community, where all those nasty poor people can’t come.

PS Uburoisic, I see from your travel list that my travel and living experience is multitudes greater than yours, (lived in 24 states, travelled extensively through ALL of them, including Alaska but excluding Hawaii, and having lived in 5 foreign countries and travelled in 80) but the difference is really that when living near people not like me, I took the time to try to understand their lives and learn from them, never assuming that I was better.

But Holly, Christ did not say, according to mainstream christianity, do good works, or community service, or you cant come in. He leaves it up the individual to decide for themself to do the work for others. And by so doing not only the beneficiary is blessed with happiness but so is the giver. I have to put my two cents in with those opposed to the abandoned plan of President Elect Obama. Mandatory service is in fact a violation of the 13th ammendment as it is forced labor. However, it is a wonderful thing to be able to serve our communities because in so doing we benefit and do in fact make it easier to accomplish our goals of the american dream because if our communities are better our opportunities improve. So does our happiness.

As for everyone else on here defending the federal government requiring community service…get off your butt and back away from the keyboard…it’s Thursday night and the soup kitchen is open and in need of volunteers.

212. Candy: I was one of those annoying non-traditional students when I attended college. You know the ones: we sit in the front of the class and question the professor about everything. I’m still paying my student loans; paying for something that will benefit your future won’t kill you! Maybe you should pay more attention in your history classes and you should question your professors, they are working for you!

As a life long Republican I am embarrassed that the right wing fascists are in control of the grand old party. They are going after Obama and family in a way that is an embarrassment to our nation. We have controlled Gov for most of the years since Roosevelt
Power corrupts and the grand old party is corrupted, It is a two party system or so I was taught growing up, I think decency, respect is in order even when the party of ones choice is not currently in power. I hope decent leaders of our Republican party will step forward and get the party under control

plan on pledging to a fraternity next year. Part of me even being considered is that I perform a mandatory number of hours of community service. Is that the same as slavery. I don’t think so, its an honor to be able to go and keep an elderly citizen who has no family company, or to go and tutor to a young person who is having issues with there school-work.

You so called Christians make me sick to my stomach. The things he is asking Americans do to, is the same thing our lord and savior Jesus Christ teaches. Plus he’s trying to help people pay for a college education that continues to get higher and higher every year. Just think about all the people who cant afford to send their kids to school this year due to our horrible economy.

Stop being so darn judgmental,Hey I know it still stings that you’re candidate lost. Get over it. Grow up and start performing the duties that Jesus requires of us. Obama is not going to enslave you idiots, He is not going to make white people pay for you’re many,many sins against all minorities over the course of this countries long history. He’s just asking that we put a little more effort to make this country better, How anyone can find a negative in that. Simply blows my 17 year old mind.

You people wont even give the idea a chance. Some of you people are so ignorant.

Everyone is crying “Jobs” “We need jobs” Some of you would not know a job if it jumped out and bit you. We have a real problem with our kids NOT graduating high school. If there is hope for college for ALL of them, don’t you think more would decide to stay the course? I know, I know, a little knowledge is dangerous. The problem is, you might be stuffing a really good doctor or educator Under the saddle of your highhorse. Maybe even the inventor of the warp engine. If these students have just one job while attending school and the benefit of $4,000 under their belt, that leaves the other job or two open for someone else. JOBS, EDUCATION< M

I guess some people don’t understand the difference between something being your “choice” and something being “mandatory”. In my community giving back to your community which has given to you means that when the little boy got killed in a car wreck going to a baseball game, the football team got together and planned, and delivered a dinner to the childs family…..when the church needed a new roof, community members from that church and others donated time, food, and items to hold a dinner and an auction to help raise that money….when we had several inches of snow, kids shoveled snow for the neighbors who physically were not able to….with out being paid may I add….that to me is “community service”. It is something that you do out of the kindness of your heart, not something that is “mandatory”. I am not afraid of my “snot nosed children” doing community service……..I would imagine they understand that meaning alot more than you do……

Barack Obama is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was editor of its Law Review. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. I am surprised at his ignorance of the Constitution demonstrated by his remarks about requiring citizens to work for free, given his education. He will soon be swearing the he will “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”. I do hope he will spend some remedial time studying the Constitution to prepare himself for this responsibility.

Does serving in a war zone for a year, getting shot at, watching friends killed and torn up, all the while as the country’s citizen sit safely behind our borders give veterans a “Kings X” for this particular boondoggle evolution?

I sure hope so, mainly because I don’t want to spend my time with protected, cossetted, whiners who will almost certainly gripe about the “hardships” of taking time out of their important lives to do some uncompensated work.

I’m also not particularly interested in being told what to do with my spare time when I come back to hearth and home. We’re not honoring our oath to Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States just to come home and find that its freedoms have been curtailed.

i went to a public high school and they required 60 hours for graduation. other people i went to college with reported 75 or 100 hour requirements.

i can’t believe people could be against the idea of voluntary community service. there’s no requirement, and even if there was, it’s not like norway or greece have become some fascist dystopia. it’s ridiculous to act like a few positive rights are anything close to slavery, or to bring up nazi germany as some sort of retarded argument that anything which took place in some manner there inevitably leads to evil. they made good cars and had anti-smoking campaigns! oh noes the attorney general must be a nazi!

Everyone is crying “Jobs” “We need jobs” Some of you would not know a job if it jumped out and bit you. We have a real problem with our kids NOT graduating high school. If there is hope for college for ALL of them, don’t you think more would decide to stay the course? I know, I know, a little knowledge is dangerous. The problem is, you might be stuffing a really good doctor or educator Under the saddle of your highhorse. Maybe even the inventor of the warp engine. If these students have just one job while attending school and the benefit of $4,000 under their belt, that leaves the other job or two open for someone else. JOBS, EDUCATION, MORE PROFESSIONALS, WIN WIN WIN

Everyone is crying “Jobs” “We need jobs” Some of you would not know a job if it jumped out and bit you. We have a real problem with our kids NOT graduating high school. If there is hope for college for ALL of them, don’t you think more would decide to stay the course? I know, I know, a little knowledge is dangerous. The problem is, you might be stuffing a really good doctor or educator Under the saddle of your highhorse. Maybe even the inventor of the warp engine. If these students have just one job while attending school and the benefit of $4,000 under their belt, that leaves the other job or two open for someone else. JOBS, EDUCATION, MORE PROFESSIONALS, WIN WIN WIN

PS: Perhaps some forms of community service ought to be made mandatory. Learning how to speak and write English properly would be my first choice based on a random sampling of posts above. “Your” is not the proper contracted form of “You Are.” “You’re” is. Elementary punctuation is also sorely lacking in many of the previous posts. Basic errors abound. Split infinitives infest the entire thread. It makes one embarassed to be a citizen knowing so many others have wasted their free public educations and opportunities thousands before you have died and suffered to ensure.

Over in the parts of the world where a lot of us have spent our time, they risk their lives to attend school to improve themselves. What are you all doing to become at least semi-productive citizens other than obviously forgetting basic English lessons from grammar and high school?

Wow, a lot of the posts here are absolutely vitriolic and unnecessarily mean-spirited and insulting. Is it really necessary to be this hateful? Regarding the topic of volutneering and service, there are a couple of countries I can name right off that make this MANDATORY. Germany and Israel: and to date, none of my German or Isreali friends have ever shrieked about it. Both are generally given a choice between military service, training to be a paramedic or medic, or some other type of service.

It’s a shame there is such a visceral hatred for it- and there likely wouldn’t be this conversation if Palin hadn’t denigrated it so heartily during her acceptance speech during the Republican convention and McCain hadn’t gone on and on about Socialism (another topic).

To set the record straight, mandatory community service isn’t Marxism, Socialism, Communism, Proletarianism, Cvetchianism (what ever the hell that is…do you mean kvetch?) or any other ism you can think of. And there are a lot of institutions that have that requirement- people seem to still attend these universities so it cannot be all that onerous. And what makes this requirement so different from other requirements as a citizen of the US? You want to go to college? Most universities require SAT scores. That isn’t socialism. You want to work at certain companies? You’ll likely have to volunteer your time as an intern first before they’ll hire you. You don’t want to do it, you’ll probably not get the job.

I don’t think community service should be mandatory for everyone, it would be simply awful to have some lovely grandmother abused by a jerk from this message board who was yanked off the street and forced to read to her. But for any type of program supported by the government, I think it’s a great idea.

Off course it’s not Marxism, it’s Fascism. Picture all those bright shiny faces preaching the word of “The One” to the ignorant masses who still believe in the Constitution. See Community Service recruit Dick explain to Joe that a small businessman that he should be happy keeping a third of his income so that others may enjoy the better things in life. See Sister Jane berate the college wrestler that it’s better to cancel his program, just in case a few co-eds decide to take up field hockey. See Rover destroy the neighbor’s lawn by burying dozens of organic bones throughout his yard. Watch the Neighborhood Commander scold the offended neighbor for even thinking that he has more right to his property than Rover. Can re-education camps be far behind?

“To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude, that the fiery and destructive passions of war, reign in the human breast, with much more powerful sway, than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace.” (Alexander Hamilton)

To judge from the negativity of many posts here,we may also be compelled to conclude that the abusive conditions of homelife or monetary insecurity hurting many of us now make us boorish, even cruel, when a faint prospect of hope and noble purpose is glimmering on the horizon — seen at least by those fortunate few.

I may be a cynic, too, but at least a frustrated idealist still at heart, who likes an occasional article of positive value.

“Hmmm. Requiring college students to give 100 community service hours in order to receive a $4000 tax credit. Sounds like a high paying gov job to me. And why only 100 hours? Requiring something in order to get something is not volunteering neither is it community service. Even if the “job” serves the community (Think of the Police or Fire Departments). It is however employment or trade or bartering. It’s like… I have eggs. You have no money. You paint my fence. I give you eggs.”

Exactly! A hefty compensation equivalent to $40 an hour, for a minimum amount of effort, is not volunteerism. Who is paying for all this? Taxpayers, struggling to set aside a few pennies for their own children’s education?

To the young people posting, nobody is stopping you from volunteering right now. This may come as a shock, but you really don’t need Obama’s blessing before volunteering at organizations in your own community. I feel confident they will welcome an extra pair of hands. Although, I’m not too sure they’ll appreciate your attitude of entitlement.

Pajamas Media is not unbiased and that is ok. We need big tent conservative media. We need to focus on conservative plans. Spending time learning how to get along with our socialisdt overlordz We lost an election b/c the people that control the information asked no questions, which is their mandate imho. So be right wing, be conservative. Be the anti-mainstream media and when the Fairness Doctrine comes, most of we litigants will represent you pro bono, in our state as needed.

The children are going to be in charge come January. I think when things crumble, which we know they will, we can beat them with our message and philosophy.

We need to look closely at these things that our new president elect is anticipating doing people. Mandatory community service? Slavery?
Wake up people, by electing this man who may or may not even be an American Citizen,( check out the fact that no one knows if he was born in Hawaii or Kenya, Most records I have found indicate the man was born in kenya), and the fact that the redcords are sealed to hide this fact from the American people, so who knows what will happen next. The American people who elected this man are blind to the true facts of what is going on. Wake up America befor its too late for us all!

2. Unconstrained by the interference of another; unimpelled by the influence of another; not prompted or persuaded by another; done of his or its own accord; spontaneous; acting of one’s self, or of itself; free.

Would you say the man who’s called us to his, and obviously your, notion of “compassion” has, in fact, abandoned it himself?

I recall a school in Kenya he promised to help on one of his visits. They named their school after him as they awaited his aid. A Christian organization finally took up donations to follow through on his broken promise.

I also recall this same man’s half-brother living in a hut in a slum on $12/year. Interviews with the man proved no aid has been given him from The One who has counseled the rest of us to be “our brother’s keeper.”

Most recently, we’ve learned of the aunt about whom he wrote in one of his highly profitable memoirs (one earning him much of his $4.2million income last year). He assured us he had no idea (though his staff has said otherwise) that she was living here – llegally – in Boston’s public housing.

Not one of these three has this very wealthy man aided. Would you say he has “abandoned compassion?” Or shall we merely tag him as having been “hypocritical?”

In his defense, you might say he gave years of service to his community for a meager income rather than receive far better compensation elsewhere. He didn’t miss a chance to tout his “community organizing” on the campaign trail. A service he’d have us believe he performed out of the goodness of his heart. Rubbish. It was done to further his political aspirations. And build his “army” of faithful followers.

It had the stench of evil all over it.

Inspired by Alinsky who dedicated his “Rules for Radicals” to Lucifer, BO took to it like a duck to water. In fact, he was chosen to teach those methods he was so good at them. The students are the lovely ACORNers we can thank for the fraud contaminating our formerly free and fair elections. His “army” pulled through for him. He trained them well.

He wants this army to grow; they have more work to do. For him.

You can be sure his call to ‘community service’ is every bit as misleading as his candidacy has been. Compassion will have nothing to do with it.

No where in this or any other article that I’ve read has there been mention of no compensation for the community service performed. Those performing community service would be compensated in the form of tuition credits, grade credits, or whatever. It’s not saying anyone needs to get up at 5am and schlep somewhere to do work and get absolutely nothing in return.

It is also not forcing anyone to take part in these programs. It’s just saying that if you want these certain benefits (tuition, grade credits) you can EARN them through community service. Hello, isn’t the rightwing way all about wanting people to EARN their way and not get handouts? And too bad for you leftwingers that Obama isn’t going to just give handouts. People will have to earn their way by helping others.

What I see in the negative reactions to President-elect Obama’s ideas are two things – either rightwing partisan resistance to anything coming from a Democractic President, or the kind of self absorbed, selfish attitude that thinks it’s all about “me, me, me” and “I shouldn’t have to do anything I don’t want to do, but I should still get something for nothing”.

Eliminating or reducing both of these attitudes is EXACTLY the kind of change Obama has been promoting during his entire campaign.

Instead of mandatory community service, why don’t we do like most other nations and have individuals complete a two year armed services stint. Most all countries do this but us, and it is a shame that service is not mandatory to kids when they get out of school. Instead we have a bunch of lazy asses who think the world owes them something. They need to see how other countries live and have something to compare and open their eyes.

The work ethic in our country has sunk to new low because everything is a handout. Kids are still living with parents at 25 an 26 years old and expect to have what their parents had worked for 40 years. They are too lazy to look for a job. I have seen first hand that “I don’t want to flip burgers, I had rather get food stamps and housing. These are the same irresponsible individuals that think the government owes them a living.

Why is everyone so stupid. When asked Obama voters why they were voting for him, they could not answer the question. They had not a clue. It is inexcusable how dumb and misinformed the American public is regarding our nation’s history as well as other countries. Most of the young voters would not have cared what Obama stood for and if you told them, it would not matter.

We are a shallow celebrity worshiping society that worships fame and money, and those are the same individuals that want to ride on the backs of the working people and have government make our everyday decisions. Everything the government touches ends up “screwed, corrupted, and the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.

Get a grip folks, if you want help, look at the end of your arm. Yes, we need to help many individuals in need, but a hell of a lot of people are for a free ride and government is obliged to give it to them so they can get control of lives and their “free ride votes.”

Google ‘Public Allies’ – I agree it’s not Marxism or slavery, but it will definitely be political indoctrination. I told my wife last night that in a few years, my 10-year-old would be required to go to a 3 month boot camp. She said ‘good’ (and she is a good conservative) – until I explained the model for the program (public allies) and pointed out the indoctrination aspects of it. She was considerably less positive after learning about that.

Wow. It really is entertaining seeing you right wing wackos grab onto one thing as hard as you can and milk it until it bleeds. Sure, I would have voted for McCain if:
1. He hadn’t chosen a complete WHACK job as huis running mate
2. Had run an honorable campaign
3. Had been the honorable man that he was before the campaign started and not whipped all you Republican weirdos into a froth over half truths and unfinished thoughts
4. Offered any real thoughts on how to get this country (Horribly misguided and off track because of, you got it, REPUBLICAN leadership for the past 8 years) moving in the right direction.

Guess what? The better man won. Now you right wing wackos need to get in the backseat, the way us MODERATE people have been for the past 8 years. Suck it up. Because that’s basically what you told us to do.

Another quick thought…why is it that when someone voted for Obama, they are suddenly a liberal whacko? Are you folks contending that 52% of the country is liberal whackos? Well, then I guess you should take advantage of some socialist program benefitting minorities.

But don’t worry. It isn’t your fault. When you should have been at home studying history (real history, not the therapeutic nonsense you’re reading now), instead you were doing community service. Otherwise you’d actually have at least some distant inkling of what Marxism, Communism, and the varism other isms are, or perhaps have some remote idea what the foundational principles are in our form of government, and where the ideas underlying those principles came from. Apparently for you community service is more important than an actual education.

Right now your argument is simply: “You’re icky! Some institutions do it now, it feels good; therefore it’s correct.”

November 11, 2008
Q: Is Obama planning a Gestapo-like “civilian national security force”?
I read a quote from Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia which stated that Obama wants to set up a civilian national security force that was similar to the “Gestapo” or the Nazi Brownshirts.

What is the truth behind Obama’s statements that he wants to create a “civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded [as the military]“?
A: This false claim is a badly distorted version of Obama’s call for doubling the Peace Corps, creating volunteer networks and increasing the size of the Foreign Service.
This question stems from an interview that Republican Rep. Broun of Georgia gave to The Associated Press Nov. 10. The story carried a headline, “Georgia congressman warns of Obama dictatorship.” It said that Broun “fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.” And it quoted him this way:

Rep. Paul Broun, Nov. 10: It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s [Obama's] the one who proposed this national security force. … That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did.

Similar claims have been circulating in right-leaning blogs and conservative Web sites ever since July, when Obama made a single reference to a “civilian national security force” in a campaign speech in Colorado. Obama’s detractors make much of his expansive (and exaggerated) description of such a force as being “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the U.S. military. They also ignore the context.

Obama was not talking about a “security force” with guns or police powers. He was talking specifically about expanding AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps and the USA Freedom Corps, which is the volunteer initiative launched by the Bush administration after the attacks of 9/11, and about increasing the number of trained Foreign Service officers who populate U.S. embassies overseas.

Here is the relevant portion of what Obama actually said, with the sentences quoted selectively by Broun and others in bold.

Obama, July 2, Colorado Springs, CO: [As] president I will expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots [from 75,000] and make that increased service a vehicle to meet national goals, like providing health care and education, saving our planet and restoring our standing in the world, so that citizens see their effort connected to a common purpose.

People of all ages, stations and skills will be asked to serve. Because when it comes to the challenges we face, the American people are not the problem – they are the answer. So we are going to send more college graduates to teach and mentor our young people. We’ll call on Americans to join an energy corps, to conduct renewable energy and environmental clean-up projects in their neighborhoods all across the country.

We will enlist our veterans to find jobs and support for other vets, and to be there for our military families. And we’re going to grow our Foreign Service, open consulates that have been shuttered and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy. We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set.

We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded. We need to use technology to connect people to service. We’ll expand USA Freedom Corps to create online networks where American can browse opportunities to volunteer. You’ll be able to search by category, time commitment and skill sets. You’ll be able to rate service opportunities, build service networks, and create your own service pages to track your hours and activities.

This will empower more Americans to craft their own service agenda and make their own change from the bottom up.

Does that sound like a force that could kick down your door in the middle of the night and haul you off to a Gulag or concentration camp? You decide.

Will, yes, I do think many if not most of the poor are poor because they are damaged beyond repair; mostly doomed souls on their way down the ladder. Shattered people whose lives were a haze of drugs, thieving and lying to themselves. But there is a huge spectrum among those millions, and plenty get out here in the US and move along to something better; this isn’t Bombay. But they get out, they leave their fellow poor and go someplace else, that place cannot be fixed anymore, it is past saving.

And you’re right, the poor are not entirely some grand mass of villainous predators, they are millions of individual men and women all with different sensibilities and perceptions–but their neighborhoods are uniformly awful, their services are lousy, and their sense of community stinks, mostly, and I cannot help that and neither can the government or an army of volunteers.

I have observed that the poor are terrible to one another, petty, vicious and unduly cruel. Many of the people who wind up there are incapable of getting along or of controlling themselves, and I think their self-loathing gets taken out on their children (who create the next generation of damaged and violent people). Violent, crazy people are usually poor unless their family has money and cares for them. These people have kids with other irresponsible, crazy, unrealistic people, or with many different people. Now you have a big problem brewing (as DP Moynihan observed decades ago to a shrug from most intellectuals) and here it is, all over America, the underserved.

But they became more and more underserved as their political and religious figures led them into one bad choice after another, just look at what an idiot like Colman Young did to the social fabric of Detroit. And as those poor neighborhoods became more and more violent and crime skyrocketed, people voted with their feet: get as far away from them as possible. A big part of the urban poor in America live in desirable real estate, but are so far removed from normal society, both psychologically and culturally, that no-one wants to deal with them anymore. They compounded their poverty with layers of isolation. Now the pride of having made so may bad decisions refuses to face facts; that is the poor society in a microcosm. Crazy, resentful, embittered, and perversely attracted to doing the opposite of the larger society. Kind of like a drug addict who cannot get out of the hole he has dug for 20 years because them he has the soul shattering confrontation that he has destroyed so much of his life; better to die is a drug haze than accept the terrible losses he inflicted on himself.

Take all these illegitimate children I mentioned, mix in race politics and drugs, and paranoid garbage from the local preachers (Hello, Rev Wright), a contempt for thinking (or worse, being encouraged to call low-grade race hectoring critical thought, ala Cornell West), toss in the conspiracy theories about everything outside the block, add non-stop television, an unrealistic devotion to sports and pop music, and you have the inner-city rap/hip-hop/baby-momma/thuglife phenomenon. It is an utter train-wreck, and it is also damaging generations of poor immigrants from other cultures who come here with a fairly clean slate, but whose children grow up in the cultural miasma.

Obama’s Rev Wright was illustrative: here is a racist lunatic; a total fraud through and through, a moron rabble-rousing demagogue of the lowest order who is inexplicably entrusted to guide the lives of his parishioners. They kiss his *ss all over Chicago, and nobody dares to say one work about him or his crazy church. Preachers in poor neighborhoods like this nut are a dime a dozen and have been around for years, but the leftists never, ever said a word about it. Preaching conspiracy theories and childish ideas about Pan-Africanism and and liberation theology, none of this doing one bit of good for anyone involved except himself. And the left still cannot bring themselves to look seriously at the damage this guy and those like him have done. How in the hell do you fix a dysfunctional subculture when the people in charge of fixing it are nuts or intellectual cowards?

Ever see the series “The Wire”? The finest (and most honest) assessment of what the American City feels like, in my opinion. I wish went on longer. David Simon and I do not agree, but he told the truth about a lot of things.

Can you find out what gas Obama intends to use at his camps? I’d like to start building up my immunities to them early although I doubt it will matter. Also will he mass grave the bodies, burn them in incinerators or allow Marxists members of the families to claim them. My last concern is will he be sharing the wealth of his victims with the entire country or allow them to distribute their assets to their families?

Relax, you’re a bald-faced liar. The entire commentary came from Obama flapping his gums about national security and you know it. Quit trying to pass off this to the Peace Corps because it’s filthy lie. The reply came as a direct result of his blathering on about national security.

Slavery and required community service are the same in that they share the same principle. That principle is the initiation of force against human beings. It is an immoral principle because it violates human beings primary means of survival: reason.

Both slavery and required community service are the result of force. Not persuasion. They are both evil.

Require 100 Hours of Service in College: Obama and Biden will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.

(Now this is a doosey. Key word here is REQUIRED. why bother mention a $4000 dollar tax break as an incentive? Come on, comrade Obama, don’t pretend like you’re not saying what you actually saying. Your talking about making it LAW to serve. Just like those awesome countries in Latin America and Asia. Private schools, you know like the one I myself will be paying for, are the exception. At least for now. that means STATE SCHOOLS are the ones subject to this.

Last time I checked, serving your community and your country was a choice, and I’m voting for McCain to keep it that way! (Ed: I did.)

Am I patriotic if serve in the military or help the poor? You bet. Am I patriotic if I don’t? Well, according to Obama/Biden, I’m NOT! kooky, huh? Here I am, thinking this was America!!

The man said it with Hillary Clinton at the MTV/Myspace Forum back in February. Joe Biden reiterated it. Even with the rewording, he’s essentially saying the same thing. Altruism is a choice, and if the Left ever chose to actually define what that means, they’ll find a rather unsavory definition. Altruism: service for the benefit of others, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. Such was the moral underlining of every great human atrocity ever committed.

I think its a great idea and its an incentive for college students to be motivated by a credit towards tuition. Lets be honest yes there are volunteers and yes some kids already are doing this out of their own volition or for credit in highschool, but there are many many more that are not interested in the least towards community service. Its a great idea to motivate those individuals who think community service is dirty or beneath them. Its a great way to rally the people towards helping one another and being exposed to new things that they may not be aware of. Its a wonderful way to expose our kids to something new like volunteering at a soup kitchen or reading to the elderly, cleaning up our beaches or parks. It can be something the whole family can do together not just for the kids. I think that is what Obama is pushing for a call for community service from the citizens. People have forgotten how to give back to their community and its about time people who succeed find ways to give back. Stop looking at it as Marxism or Socialist and start getting used to this new change. Its happening with or without complaints.

“This is not slavery. This is not forced labor. This is outreach. It represents values. Slavery is an act that benefits no one but the person who owns the slave”

Not that I would liken Obama’s original proposal for forced community service to slavery, but the slaves working in the copper mines for the *government* of Rome were performing community service as well by your definition. That was service that benefitted all of society (since the government was the slave owner and beneficiary of his labor), but we would still consider it slavery.

It all depends on what the person is forced to do…and, of course, the fact that they are forced to do it.

Fear not on anything like community service, or a National Security Force. Just like Detroit where they wanted to plant some trees with volunteer help. The unions stepped up and let everyone know that the Forest workers union or some such will take care of that chore.

wow. lots of angry, horrible people choose to respond in angry, horrible, hateful terms. i’m sorry for you, and wish you were happier, but i’m happy to have some intelligence in the white house and that i have the ability to look at an issue from more than one pre-chosen perspective. i hope you feel better after throwing names at people trying to help the world a bit. enjoy.

Who knows? Having a record of government volunteerism in your government file may pay off one day when you are pleading with a government bureaucrat to get the medical attention you require to survive. Good citizens just might to get to move the head of the line while those bad attitude libertarians and conservatives just might have to do all of society a big favor and just die waiting in line for their nationalized health care. You never know! It could pay big dividends one day.

Then again, maybe not. Look how the British NHS has refused medical care to the Gurkha veterans who fought for the UK.

Michele, Your comments “…community service”, “This is not slavery. This is not forced labor.”, oh, YES IT IS! If it is compulsory! If you cannot see the difference between “compulsion” and “free choice” in actions undertaken by the individual,you are hopelessly ignorant and your opinion is not of value in this debate.

Hmmm…..I recall another Michelle talking about “broken (American) souls,” a “downright mean” America, and (paraphrasing) Barack will never let you return to your lives the way they were. I also heard this other Michelle put forth a mandate to one particular audience: Do not go into private corporations and prosper; rather, do some sort of public or community service. I believe this Michelle’s husband delivered a similar commencement speech to some university and the poor saps who were forced to listen. Therein lies the mandatory community service, therein lies the carrot and the stick for college tuition, which is a tax credit, as I recently read. George H.W. Bush spoke from an understanding of the innate goodness and generosity of the American people and their desire to help others. Volunteerism. Michelle and her husband speak from their perception of an inherently flawed people in an inherently flawed nation, and both, according to their gospel, need to be corrected.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with community service; it can be a very good thing (though one pauses when faking voter registrations gets described as “community service”).

But just because something is good doesn’t mean it’s fine to make other people do it. It’s the requirement that’s the issue.

The first wording change wasn’t much of an improvement. Like much of Obama’s rhetoric, it sounded like Change, but in reality once you thought about it you started to worry about how that goal might be implemented. Perhaps a requirement that local school districts meet the “goal” or not receive federal funding? It’s not as if there isn’t ample precedent for outsourcing thuggish requirements based on penalties to third parties – just look at how the government has convinced companies to stifle speech via the various harassment liabilities imposed on employers.

Now it doesn’t say much at all. “Trust us” is the implicit message. I think I’ll pass…

Come on Obama if a college requires community service, let the people do it themselves, don’t make/baby them by just telling them what to do. I guess that is why people voted for Obama, so we can have a socialism and be told what to do, and be treated like babies

Community Service is a sentence given to lawbreakers. We Americans are about to be sentenced to community service because we are apparently bad for the world despite all the evidence to the contrary. The biggest single domestic crime we are being punished for is the fact that too many of us are still white. This is a bad thing, apparently.

Apparently Ms. Catalano never heard any of Michelle Obama’s remarks about “requiring us to work,” or “saving our souls.” I work, and I’ll worry about my own soul, thank you very much.

Here’s how an American serves his/her community:

By being a good, productive, self-reliant, decent and honest citizen. Period. No other compulsory or voluntary service required. End of discussion.

The problem I have observed about mandated community service requirements is that only those projects acceptable to the powers to be are given credit. I coached a young man for his high school career in running. He did a multi-trail restoration project sponsored by his church and the scouts. The school refused to accept it for his community service, wasn’t one of their pet projects. I could relate many stories I observed over 25 years of teaching, most in inner city schools, none of them speak well for mandated community service.
Yes, as a conservative, I will grant that they immediately removed the mandated part of the requirement from the website. But it doesn’t logically follow that they no longer believe in mandatory community service. Pres.-elect Obama has changed many positions faster that high pressure water spraying from a pin-hole leak. So you’ll excuse me if I behave as a Missouri mule and require that he shows me by actions he has really changed.

Whoa Michelle, sounds like your a liberal, am I wrong? If me or my family want to do any type of community service we’ll do so at our choice, I don’t need anyone telling me or my kids what to do and for whom, remember the constitution? Freedom of choice. Also I’ll hold my own when it comes to tuition. My wife and I both paid off our school loans with hard work not some type of govt program. This country was built on freedom and hard work not socialism. Obama defines socialism to its very limit period. Oh and by the way my community is doing just fine with all the taxes I pay, give me a break and get a job!

I agree that community service is not slavery. Let’s see. . . 100 hours = $4,000 = $40 per hour. I’ll just take the money. Who needs college at $40 per hour. I know…the hours would be limited. More important where will the $4,000 per student come from. Most colleges are hurting for money like everyone else. Oh, we can rob the rich and give to the poor.

I have prayed and I will continue to pray that Obama is better than what he has shown himself to be. But with Nancy Pelosi and her Employee Free Choice Act, Fairness Doctrine, etc….and Obama never going against the Democrats…well, I think we all need to pray!! Watch out for really, really BIG government coming our way!!

Forced labor is a practice of compulsory labor exacted by a state or by agencies of a state, other than as a punishment for a criminal offence. It was quite common in the French, German, Belgian, Portuguese and Spanish colonies in Africa, and, to a lesser degree, in the British colonies (where the inhabitants performed such labor in lieu of taxation).

….

“where the inhabitants performed such labor in lieu of taxation” sounds a whole lot like community service in exchange for a tax credit to me.

Nice try Michele Catalano but you are flatly, 100% wrong. Obama’s plan is forced labor, forced labor is slavery and Americans are free to defend themselves to the hilt from any effort to subject them to these kind of crackpot, marxist, communist, totalitarian schemes.

“Community service” is what someone is given as punishment for a crime. I have committed no crime, will not perform “community service” and deeply look forward to the day when any person tries to force me to do something against my will.

Community service is good only if you accept altruism — service to others — as your moral ideal. And why would anyone think that that is a proper moral ideal for Americans? This country was founded on the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, which are all profoundly selfish values. If you uphold altruism as your moral ideal; if you think people need to “give back” in order to be good; if you think service to others is what determines moral worth; then I suggest you study the history of nations where selflessness and devotion to others were most consistently upheld as moral ideals: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. They are the logical end result of having the state place the good of others above the good of the individual.

Wow, So Welfare to Work programs mimic slavery. There are so many requirements that you have to do and so many hoops that you have to jump through in order to get assistance when you are down and out…what is the difference? If you are going to give students $4000 towards tuition they should give something back. And why not have them work community service projects? These are short term projects that need manpower and benefit everyone in the community but usually there is no money to pay anyone. It’s the mandantory thing that upsets most it seems. But then we live in a country that it would be beneath some people to do community service, Maybe making it an option only for poor folk would be better towards credits in high school or college instead of mandantory, but I don’t see any problem with it at all. Good hard work builds good character period.

I read many of the responses and comments about this article and all I can say is wow. I didn’t know so many right-winged supposedly conservative Christians had this much aversion to community service. Granted, some of us have had to do it for some traffic violation but come on people. Why is it bad when the govt is encouraging community service? Church leaders do it. Some parents do it. Non-profit organizations do it. When the president-elect does it, now it’s not OK??? You bitch about the govt spending too much money on social programs, so someone suggests citizens volunteer and still you bitch. OK, it was mandatory, that was a mistake so he’s pulled that. Instead of patting yourselves on the back, you bitch yet again. Oh no, he changed his mind! He must be evil. If Obama had been a Republican, you right-bitches and Fudge News would’ve proclaimed it as godsent. Well, apparently it was God’s will that your party lost. Quit your bitter whining. Get over it. We had to deal with it after Bush won a second term despite the fact that he PROVED he was an idiot.

ENOUGH WITH THE SAME BOGUS ARGUMENT. TAKE YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES. IT IS NOT MANDATORY!

ENOUGH WITH THE SAME BOGUS ARGUMENT. TAKE YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES. IT IS NOT MANDATORY. If you don’t want to participate, you don’t have to. Geez. Nation of whiners!

Every day that I go to work, I serve the community. Every day that millions of Americans go to work, they serve the community. The Dairy Farmer is serving the community by supplying milk for your family. The steel worker is serving the community by providing the lifeblood of machinery and construction. The banker is serving the community by providing the capital for new ideas and inventions.

I RESENT Obama promoting community service as if Americans are not serving the community currently. If he wasn’t such a socialist, anti-capitalist he would see this. But to him, those who work hard, every day of our lives serving others are simply greedy. It’s ok for him to live in a million dollar mansion. It’s ok for him to make millions on his book. But for us uneducated masses, we should be doing work he deems “worthy” for no pay. What an insult to believer’s in the American Dream everywhere.

Mandatory Community Service is very nice if you don’t bother to look at the details and the fine print that will be soon attached to it by the government and it’s bureaucrats when it’s implemented . In my opinion , the mandatory part is BS and I’ll be frank here , making community service mandatory to kids from middle school to college will make it less likely for most of them to be involved in VOLUNTARY community service when they grow up and they will have a perfectly good reason for that . They will assume that the community does not need them because the community have all the help they will ever need . At the same time , like the military draft , there will be kids and young people who will have the plum assignments or more likely exemptions provided by their connected families . Besides , knowing the government , they will now have a work force that they can use as they see fit and with the proper incentives , they can turn them to something else .

Relax
It’s easy to implement the change you want by giving false promises and using kids to do the agenda for you . And from the look of things , it will the continuation of indoctrination by government fiat disguised as helping the community .

Wow the neocon apologists are out in full force. The hypocrasy is mindboggling. Obama mentions community service and you scream MARXIST!! Bush wire-taps citizens, redacts habeas corpus, opens secret prisons and legal black holes and you just nodded your head in agreement and repeated the mantra “freedom isn’t free” Obama wants to come up with a way to encourage our citizen to take care of our country and you call him Lenin’s new incarnation.

BTW I also oppose mandatory community service of principle I would not call it marxism or even progressive socialism.

“Was there this much objection when Kennedy asked for people to volunteer? When the first Bush did it? Or the 2nd Bush? Or when just about every other President plays up the volunteerism card?

Choose your battles people, this one is a stinker.”

Yes, it IS a stinker when they start talking about public service as anything but unbribed, unsullied volunteerism.

I’m an Eagle Scout in the boy scouts…that takes a LOT of public service. I was also a member of the Order of the Arrow in the scouts, whose sole purpose is cheerful service to others.

I foster children in my home. I volunteer at the local Humane Society. I have donated time to participate in community theater. I know service. I don’t WANT the government to be telling me or my family what they must do in order to be a good person. Period.

The day politicians in Washington start telling me how to be a good person and seriously expecting me to comply is the day I quit the human race.

“Volunteering” is a noble contribution of time and energy.
“Community Service” is grunt work. The requirement is a goal to be met, a place to stop.

Requiring community service will not instill in anyone the joy of serving others, the joy of volunteering time and energy to the betterment of society. It will not make our students better people, and many of the hours will be “junk service”: for example, stretching a 2 hour project to 5-10 hours to make it count for more of the requirement.

I think Obama makes an understandable attempt to try to bridge the gap between the two (a $4k tax refundable tax credit; which to me sounds an awful lot like the Health Care tax credit he and his people railed on John McCain about). The problem is that placing an emphasis on the quantity, and not quality, of service, it is still a goal to be met, and place to stop.

I live and work in China as an English teacher and in China they have “mandatory volunteerism.” I always prided myself on the fact that millions of Americans volunteer willingly because it’s one of our cultural values, not because we were required to do it. My whole family has been involved in volunteer positions through our church for decades serving the community through food programs. My Chinese students are always amazed that American people get involved in causes freely and passionately. They don’t quite understand why we do it. I hope we will continue freely serving our communities not because the government says we must but because we have a passion in our heart to help our fellow man.

I am astonished how much hate you have in your heart deforming anything. I pity you because people like you will never be happy and will never enjoy friendship, will always be the person nobody wants to invite you will always be miserable. As soon as you get in a room the atmosphere is polluted.
This is your right not to like the President elected but pleasssssssse nobody is forced to do anything. Boy am I happy not to personally know you.

From the gentle lady’s article;
“altruistic thing; it is a way of perhaps giving back to a community that has given to you.”

Forced altruism is not altruism. Has the author ever wondered why charity giving has gone down under heavy periods of taxation??? Probably not.

Does she defeat the principle of her position by the above statement that those people that have taken FROM the community give some back??? Through guilt or shame or coercion what was suggested in the campaign was not altruistic. Maybe she should take a refresher course on Engels and Marx.

As she states Obama has now backtracked on his campaign rhetoric. I note ALSO his minions are beginning to backtrack on the 95% of Americans will recieve a tax CUT.

The problem has always been education in this country. It’s a shame.
nmewn

That’s where healthy Americans are encouraged (especially those over 65 who want to receive Medicare) to voluntarily donate their extra kidney, testicle, lung, cornea, ovary,etc. . . Before some neo-nazi tries to claim that such programs are reminiscent of past biological atrocities carried on by national-socialists of the past, let us remember that we require our military service members to make donations of even more vital body parts. Think of the communal feelings that will be generated when you can look over a crowd and realize that some there is carry your kidney or testicle.

If John McCain would have won, and if he decided “because we are at war”, that he needed to start a draft, there would be a bunch of people on this board raving about how any liberals (or whatever) that refused to produced their bodies for conscription were soulless communist pinkos that “hate America”.

1. If it’s mandatory, it’s not voluntary.
2. If it’s not voluntary, it’s not service.
3. If you are compensated, it’s a job.
4. There’s nothing wrong with having a job.
5. $40/hour for unskilled labor at my expense is RIDICULOUS. Yes, my income taxes aren’t voluntary, and though I certainly have made more, I’m going to be making less than $40/hour for a little while right now. Nevertheless, I’ll be forced to PAY these kids $40/hour to do minimum wage jobs? That’s wrong.

If there’s “work to do”, we could give it to college students, I guess, at the market rate. Of course, the people who need to pay the rent and aren’t going to college might want those jobs, too. In theory, college students are looking at better future earnings, so they will be better able to afford to make up for the costs of their educations. And if they won’t be more valuable employees in the future, then their degrees serve nobody but themselves; therefore they should foot the bill, not me.

So, is it reasonable to conclude there is nothing St. Barack can propose that will not be rationalized-away with “well, it’s *good* for you” and “you *should* do it anyway” – thus exposing the frustrated social worker lurking just below the top layer of every modern liberal’s skin?

Because I have a feeling many of these same apologists for *compulsory* national community service would have gone ballistic had Chimpy McBushitlerburtonCo proposed something like this back, say, after 9/11.

Just remember folks, some day you might have Sarah Palin, or Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee, deciding for your kids what is and is not acceptable “national community service”. Still think it’s a swell idea?

Compulsory, government-mandated community service is nothing like slavery because, after all, lots of people voluntarily serve their communities? And compulsory, government-mandated community service would be altruistic? Do you not understand the difference between “compulsory” and “voluntary” and all of its implications?

The logic is so fatuous that I can’t even imagine it getting a passing grade in a high school essay.

There may be solid arguments for your position, but that isn’t one of them.

I agree that comparing this to slavery is over the top, but I distrust it because it strikes me as a means for indoctrinating young people with leftist ideology.

This isn’t going to be the CCC, which involved real, hard physical work. Most of this “service” won’t compete with real jobs, because the labor unions would object, and being pushed by the government, it is likely to lose the most important component of real service, which is a free willing sacrifice of time and effort to help others.

At 19 I served an LDS mission in Germany. My family supported me. I had a missionary companion who was there, not because he really wanted to be, but because he felt social pressure to go. He was supported by contributions from other members of the church. He was lazy, and was counting the days until he could leave. He didn’t even live up to the principles he was there to teach.

I was no great shakes as a missionary, but I felt that I was there to serve God, and it weighed on my conscience not to be active and trying to find people willing to be taught.

Currently, Mormon missionaries include hours of public service as part of their commitment, and I believe it has made the program better and produced better returned missionaries.

I don’t believe that governments can be “charitable” because they are creatures of law and taxation. Only individuals can be truly charitable and provide true service, because whatever they provide is seen not as a friendly or loving gift, but as a legal obligation.

I think that community service is a valuable ideal, but it can’t be forced. If government wishes to coordinate volunteers with opportunities for service that’s fine. But when it attaches them as conditions of some government benefit, I worry.

Let me depart from all the comments I’ve read here and say: I reject Michele’s premise that I am morally obligated to “give back to the community.” Either by mandate OR by volunteering.

I don’t recognize such a “mandate” — whether politically or emotionally extorted — as being moral.

First of all, I didn’t TAKE anything from “the community.” Or from “the collective” — or “society” — take your pick. My individual freedom is a birthright — not a social debt. I was not born an indentured servant, mortgaged at birth to pay off some eternal, arbitrarily defined debt via “service” to anonymous “others.”

My neighbors don’t own or owe me, nor do I own or owe them, merely by the fact that we exist. What I have, I’ve earned through hard work, producing goods and services that others may want; and I exchange these things with them through voluntary transactions that are mutually beneficial. So there’s nothing I possess that I have to “pay back” to them.

If Barack, Michele, or 300 million Americans want my goods or services, they can pay for them. I am a man — not their servant.

Well written Michelle. The fact that you have soo many rebuttals and condescending remarks shows a lot about the people themselves. They don’t want to be forced to help someone but yet they want to enforce other laws on people that don’t agree with them. Hypocrites! There’s a place in hell for people like this. Right next to the devil!!!

Probably no one left to read this. Probably repeating what someone else has said.

This comes from someone who has & does and whose husband has & does and whose kids in various ways and various times have and do volunteer.

Now that that cred is established.

This whole thing is a really bad idea.

1) Money — Does Obama think the Federal government is rolling in dough? This is such s huge boon doggle which will cost a gazillion dollars — for what? Government intrusion and control. No thank you. Go away.

We do not need another bureaucracy. Teachers do not need one. more. thing. to. do.

As someone above mentioned part of what this gets the government is “…if you prefer, millions of people as “cheap” labor (though the price tag is anything but)….” WHY? Because socialism does not like people doing things on their own.

2) The volunteer activies have to be state approved. They will not include volunteer work at a churches or synagogues (?mosques?) That knocks out the hours my pre-teen and young teen put in in the church nursery every other Sunday … Knocks out the overseas mission trips to build orphanages, knocks out anything which does not get approved. The people approving are going to be party faithfuls, you betcha. (Pay back time anyone?)

3) The bureaucracy would be unmanageable. That’s why he has also suggested ADULTS volunteer, so he has someone “free labor” to run this shebang. (You might be interested that daughter #2 had a hard time finding service for her National Honor Society requirements — it meant me driving her into town — 25 mile round trip, and sitting around waiting for her for a couple hours. The hospital had no more room for any more candy stripe-ers …)

I have had to deal professionally with medicare and medicaid, now social security. You do NOT want these people anywhere near you nehealth care or this mandatory (i.e. coerced economically — ve haf veys) service.

3) I believe the plan includes middle school kids too. So what parent is going to leave their 12 year old daughter someplace “volunteering?” Supervision issues anyone? Who checks up?> Who does the reports? Who keeps track? Who vets the co-workers and other employees and work staff?

4) 50 hours a year at 5 hours a pop is 10 Saturdays shot. Well, where I live, Saturday is soccer day … fall and spring. And for the kids who already volunteer? More pressure.

5) As for the collge thing — I haven’t figured that out yet. 100 hours a year for $4000? That’s $40 an hour. Holy COw. That’s not volunteerism. (And where is that money coming from?) I believe that is called a bribe. But it borders on something more insidiuous.

It smells to me like buying votes.

If it should happen to pass (my congressman better not even think about it) before daughter #2 finishes school, I will forbid her from participating. She does work study now and get meals and $6 an hour. She works 10+ hours a week on campus so she can flex around her schedule. She is already working very hard academically and physically. She does not need. one. more. thing. to. do.

And I dislike indoctrination passionately.

Mr. Obama has been hanging around neighborhoods where the kids spend too much time standing on corners. Or maybe he spent too much time listening to Frank Marhsall Davis trash America.

Why not reinstate the Thousand Points of Light? Encourage us because we are a great and good people to keep doing great things.

Michele — you meant well girl, but this thing just leaves a really, really bad taste in my mouth.

Get the federal government out of my life, especially in legislating moral issues.

Obama is trying to “fix” us because he needs to fix himself. Hw and Michelle O. think we’re a mean country. And he’s been socializing with the socialists so long he doesn’t know any way but to *make* us do good by his definition, by coercion.

I suspect your kids are so involved with volunteerism because you encouraged them to, as your parents probably encouraged you. Unfortunately, I think fewer and fewer parents are doing so.

So what’s wrong with a leader ENCOURAGING volunteerism? We should be constantly encouraged by our friends, our church leaders, our political leaders and our own consciences to help out and contribute. Unfortunately, I see less and less of this happening in our ME ME ME culture (as shown by some of the responses here). When parents and society in general stop expecting some measure of contribution, what’s wrong with requiring a little of it (and 100 hours is very little) in exchange for tuition credits/cash/etc. Again, the hope is that once someone gets a taste of it, they will continue. Some will, some won’t.

I just wish I heard one conservative here respond with “Volunteer? Government doesn’t need to ask me or my kids. I’ll beat ‘em to the punch and volunteer before I’m asked.” instead of screaming and yelling that you have to spend time with dirty, lazy, shiftless poor people (the appalling position of uburoisc.)

If you don’t like the idea of volunteerism in exchange for college tuition or credits, give me a plan for encouraging volunteerism in other ways. (Maggie, I bet you’ve got some great ideas.)

(And again, please remember that the Obama plan is CALLING for volunteerism, not mandating it. So let’s put this forced labor argument to bed.)

“… if Obama put through legislation that could give me an extra 4000 tax credit just for a measly 100 hours of community service I think that would be wonderful for me and all the other college students who have to work as well!!!”

Do you understand that there is a large moral difference between “Give ’til it hurts” and “Give- or I’ll hurt you”, even if both would result in donations to “worthy causes”? Nothing good will result in the long term from the use the force of the government to compel civic duty.

As a libertarian, I cannot see anything but evil in this whole rotten scheme- no matter how wrapped up it is in ‘patriotic’ rhetoric.

It is absolutely Marxist to try to enslave children to do your “dirty work”. Obama wants to indoctronate children with his Marxist propoganda and blame America first ideology. One has only look how he and his terrorists buddy Ayers administered The Anaberg Challenge. They gave plenty of money to radicalize children but noe to educate them. Those who condone the Facism of Obama are as guilty as he is.

I served as a Christian missionary when I was younger. As I understand it, that wouldn’t count, even though it was not only completely voluntary, but it cost me quite a bit of my own money. Ironically, where I was in South America, males from 18 to their mid-twenties could be, and were, “drafted” at any moment by the military.

A bigger question is why is this even an issue for the POTUS? This isn’t even a state issue, but a community issue.

And did I mention the bureaucracy required to administer such a national program?

How about getting rid of the stupid draft registration? I’ve long passed the need to keep my registration up-to-date, but it still offends me.

All that is required to see the true function of this community service corp is ask any leftist if the community service can be with a religious organization or with a group which works to oppose abortion clinics in communities.

Of course, the answer is NO, only groups with an agenda to further the marxist goals will be considered. That is why taxpayer funds have been funneled incessantly to groups like ACORN whose sole purpose is to get Democrats elected. Is it really appropriate for billions of dollars from citizens of all political persuasion be commandeered for the use of leftists to further their agenda without the consent of those taxpayers?

What Obama and his followers want is to create a nationwide Daily Kos organization structure which screams down opposing viewpoints and applies pressure to businesses, organizations and governments to conform or face boycotts and retribution. They has already started with the email list of 3 million who they say will be notified when and where they are needed.

It sure as hell is Marxism, or more accurately, Stalinism, when that community service is virtually commanded, and the services provided are directed and essentially controlled by the state. Particularly when there is a significant difference in the way servers and non-servers are treated by the state. If servers receive some significant benefit unavailable to non-servers, it’s not voluntary, because it the failure to volunteer is punished. It’s not a donation if the “gift” is coerced out of fear of negative consequences for failure to give.

I would be very happy about true, valuable community service. But it must be voluntary. I think the problem for most people is the apparent compulsory nature of the community service plan.

Also, having seen that Mr. Obama and his party apparently consider their version of “community organizing” to be a valuable “community service”, I have no confidence whatsoever that any such program will be free from partisanship, or even valuable to the country at large. It will be used as a boondoggle and a payoff to political supporters.

So don’t hector those who are suspicious of the efficacy or legitimacy of any “community” program urged by the Great Community Organizer himself.

What is happening to PJ Media??? We have a President who has declared publicly “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

And PJ Media posts this drivel by some soft headed liberal? Yea you keep believing it won’t be mandatory and it won’t be slavery…right as you go through the gates with that cute little 4 piece playing a Waltz for your enjoyment. If you are NOT scared of this person you are in denial.

I about sick of hearing comparisons of Obama to socialist, communists, nazi blah blah blah.

Asking people to give back might not be a bad idea. Okay, the word mandatory may not have a very good connotation, but let’s be honest, if every American were required to give back to our country, we could be truly great. Is this concept all that different from selective service. I remember having to go and register so that if a war broke out, I could be called in to service of my country whether or not I wanted to or not. Now that I think about, my father served two terms in Vietnam thanks to that little peice of legislation and I know that he wold have rather stayed home with his new born son and child.

Voluntarily helping others is a great thing. Being coerced into doing something, even helping others, is slavery.

Perhaps Obama has retreated from the notion of mandatory service, perhaps not–does he hold to the idea, expressed in a December 2007 speech, that he’d blackmail high schools into requiring community service in the same way that the government blackmailed states into raising the drinking age to 21, by withholding federal assistance to those who refuse?

Leftists are all about indoctrination. Obamacorps, then, is nothing new. It is expected. Leftists must be liked and appreciated, must be respected and adored, hence their bizarre obsession with “the perception of America in the eyes of the world”. They live by group cohesion and assimilating with the crowd. Their self-desired individualism is a façade for inherent insecurity. The indoctrination starts early but most obviously from K-12 where your precious little idiot is genuinely forced to think the way every other impressionable little idiot around him thinks. The widespread acceptance of the youth of “irrefutable global warming” does not show any independence of thought or honest investigation. Rather it demonstrates malleable minds being molded to suit. They ALL believe that crap. And those who don’t are not lauded for independence of spirit or thought. They are castigated and made pariahs. Is there nothing at all troubling about the fact that so many young people enter public schools and eventually college with divergent views and graduate from every level believing almost exactly the same things? Obamacorps is merely another level and vehicle of indoctrination, of groupthink, of social engineering. It is just a bit unsettling that artists and performers, writers and lawyers are in near total agreement as to their belief system. These sorts enjoy believing themselves individualistic, but they are rife with conformity. Obamacorps is really just another outlet for unfulfilled, searching lemmings with an unfounded sense of self and self-worth. They believe nothing sincerely and therefore will believe everything desperately. The disturbing cult of Obama is yet another predictable manifestation of this unadmitted lack of worth or true sense of self. The author is right. Obamacorps isn’t Marxist. It is the latest amalgamation of the modern democrat and progressive. The Marxists have nothing on these folks.

By the way, if you’re told to do something, it’s not “altruistic”. It’s only altruism if you do it by choice.

Absolutely, horribly wrong. Check the sources, starting with August de Comte, who originated the term, and Immanuel Kant with his prohibitions against acting on “inclination” while exhorting “duty”.

Altruism precisely means the idea that we have an *unchosen* obligation, a “duty” to others. Its antithesis is the principle of liberty. That is why the notion of “mandatory volunteerism” is taken seriously instead of derided for the socialist/fascist/collectivist evil it is.

Ask yourself this: do you still have the moral right to exist if you never give a dime to another person?

Altruism says no. Liberty — which necessarily is based on the egoist premise of placing each person’s moral sovereignty and freedom to choose above any other alleged moral claims — says yes.

It really is that simple. The help that we give one another should always be freely offered — never demanded.

Lisa, my position is that the poor are, for the most part, short-sighted, not very bright as a group, inclined to violence, and self-destructive. As it happens, they are also dirty, shiftless, and lazy as well, yes thanks for reminding me. They are also noisy slobs who have almost no aesthetic sensibilities, litter everywhere, urinate in public, and place almost no value on cognition.

And I’m waiting for the explaination as to why there is so much great real estate in poor neighborhoods, even in cities that are teeming with people looking for a deal on bargain property, that sits empty? Here is Los Angeles, there are so many great houses, in central locations, that go unsold and were not selling before the prices fell. I have looked at several myself. Can’t imagine it might have something to do with the fine people you’d have to live with? Neighborly people. White liberals, your dream home awaits, great schools, too.

Have you ever looked at crime statistics in poor parts of the cities? What about illegitimate birth rates? Drug use? Teenage pregnancy? Name me a social pathology and I’ll show you where it’s probably worst without even having to go there.

First off, one must clealy distinguish between community service that is voluntary and community service that is compulsary or directly financially rewarded. The first is an act of commendable selfless charity, and the second is an act of calculated self preservation or self advancement. The first is motivated by compassion, and the second by routine self interest.

It is impossible to do good in a good way when one is compelled to do it. One can only do good in a good way when it is done voluntarily. Outward actions do not necessarily reflect inward attitudes and motives of the heart. One must not overlook the importance of heart motives when gauging the benefit sof serving other.

Secondly, few if any people think that voluntary community service is a bad thing. Such a thought is ridiculous. This is a sraw-man in this article.

Finally, this does smack of indoctination and socialism. Obama repeatedly focuses on the group or mass of citizenry and overlooks the potential of the individual. Scary stuff.

If you would, please, point out the Bible verse where Jesus tells someone who asks the way to heaven “See that guy over there? Take all his stuff and give it to the poor,” or the one that says “Inasmuch as ye have held someone at gunpoint and made him do it to the least of my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

About 10 years ago, I was in graduate school and new a young woman who ‘volunteered’ with Americorp over the summer after her sophomore year. Her job was to spend her day walking along a 10 mile stretch of river each day and collect 5 water samples. Once a week she gave a 1 hour presentation on river ecology. That was it. For this she was paid, and received money to pay part of her college expenses. She thought it was great. Her summer job was to take a pleasant river stroll everyday!

That’s the kind of makework I would expect from this program… but this time at $40/hour…

This brought to you by the people that don’t want The U.S. to have chain gangs in prison.
The people that want to unionize work fare.
The people that don’t want the U.S. to teach civics in school that THE UNITED STATES has a common history and we are the good guys.
just shaking my head

This comment from Robert Bidinotto seems to sum up the gist of the opposition to Obama’s SUGGESTION that we ENCOURAGE (not mandate) public and community service:

____
“First of all, I didn’t TAKE anything from “the community.” Or from “the collective” — or “society” — take your pick. My individual freedom is a birthright — not a social debt. I was not born an indentured servant, mortgaged at birth to pay off some eternal, arbitrarily defined debt via “service” to anonymous “others.”
___

Uh, how about you owe something to your fellow man because you are a member of the human race. How about the Christian doctrine that you are your brother’s keeper. If you aren’t a Christian, I can’t think of a single major religion that doesn’t insist that we owe help and aid to the less fortunate, simply because it is the right thing to do.

If you have no religion, how about Samuel Johnson’s suggestion that “The measure of a man is taken by how much he does for those who can do nothing for him.”

As much as we’d all like to believe that all our success is attributable to our sheer genius and hard work, the truth is that much of it is probably due to the influence of parents or mentors, our advantages and luck. Not to denigrate hard work and intelligence, which surely plays a part. But would we have been able to exercise those if we hadn’t gotten some breaks somewhere along the way. Why are some so resistant to helping others get some breaks?

My husband, who is an immigrant, is often asked if he doesn’t resent the fact that he has to pay taxes but can’t vote (he’s a permanent resident). He says he’s happy to pay taxes. As far as he sees it they are “the dues of the club.” He says the United States provides a milieu where you can succeed with luck and hard work. It was an opportunity he didn’t see in his own country. So if his taxes support that infrastructure and environment and allows it to continue allowing others to succeed, money well spent.

Fascinating to see how this is supposed to be such a ‘good thing’ and then devolves into ‘the ends justify the means’…

There is no greater evil than being forced to do ‘good’. By removing choice from the equation it is destructive to the community, not beneficial to it, and removes all benefit of being ‘good’. Without choice and conscious decision, you have coercion. From the Communists to the Fascists to the National Socialists to such fine figures as Pol Pot, we have seen where enforced ‘good’ goes. And always the ends are used to justify the means.

Until the blood pools at the feet of those who wanted so much good for society, that they finally have to kill those they disagree with for disagreeing with them. That is where it ends up, via secret police or some lovely ‘National Security Force’. We seem to have that whole agenda in front of us: National Security Force or secret police, enforced ‘good’… can the gulags, concentration camps or simple execution squads be far behind?

Not Marxism or socialism? Sounds an awful lot like one or both to me. Obamas chief of staff is in a video saying that Americans could be looking at three, or four or more months of required service. Forget the Hitler Youth, this is more like Hitler’s Brownshirts or his SS troops. People required to take a personal oath to ‘the leader’. Obama wants his private army because the regular armed services take an oath to protect the constitution and the Nation. Obama wants an army that takes an oath to him.
America can forget all about being a nation of free people if Obama gets his private army. We will either be the followers, or the new ‘juden’ with the road to the gas chambers just waiting for us. Hitler started his power grab with gun laws, Obama is following the same path. The German people refused to listen to the people telling them to beware of Hitlers aims, will America follow the same path?

Here in San Francisco we have dot com millionaires living in the Mission next to Salvadorian immigrants. Good big houses don’t stand empty. Maybe that’s why there is more volunteerism here. People don’t live in walled in gated communities. In a 7 mile square city, you rub shoulders with all kinds, usually to the betterment of everyone.

What about all of those Churches taking kids to Sunday school every week. Is this any less of an indoctrination? I watched a special in which I saw 40,000 teenagers packed in to a stadium listening Christian rock being told live a proper Christian life. Is this not indoctrination?

The very act of being born in to a community is indoctrination. We are indoctrinated in to families, churches, clubs, cultures …

Even the scripture is all is called a holly “doctrine.” Individualism is a facase period. Anytime you take up a side, you have been indoctrinated. From reading this page I see a whole lot of indoctrinated people spewing similar rhetoric. Don’t get it twisted. Just because you disagree with the doctrine of Obama does make any less of an indoctrinated person.

It was mandatory in my high school and every other high school in my county, they took it away the year I graduated, and have since reconstituted it.

Nothing Marxist about it. It helped get my self absorbed lazy butt contemporaries off the couch and taught them a little about community involvement.

We did not have a choice to go to school or not, we did not have a choice as to whether we took history, English, Math.
Community Service mandatory instruction gave us the tools to take it further should we desire.

All right, so let’s clear up one important thing: being required to visit the elderly in hospitals, collecting trash at your local park, these things are not slavery. No private entity is making a profit from your actions, it’s not picking cotton in the fields all day. That said, there is a reason that the justice system imposes community service on an individual as a penalty for committing a crime. Trespassed on a railroad? That’s three hours of community service. Caught with an open alcohol container? Eight hours of community service. So the justice system sees compulsory community service as a punishment. Volunteering your time is one thing, being forced into action is quite another.
A lot of other people made plenty of good points about the distorted nature of ‘altruism’ that this writer subscribes to, so, I see no reason to elaborate further. Except, I wonder if being forced to dig ditches in Russia was considered altruistic. Apparently, it was.

So Michele. What’s bothering me is: students – and indeed anyone in possession of free will – have always been able to perform community service of their own volition. There has never been anything stopping them.

So if they weren’t doing it before, then why would they do it now? Because “Obama asked them to”?

We have to ask ourselves: when college students chant the name of their President in unison in the street and never give a single moment’s thought to voluntary work until their President asks them to – what kind of kids are we talking about here? And what kind of President? Is the role of an American President to protect our rights and preserve the conditions under which every individual can pursue his or her happiness without threat of physical coercion, or has that role now changed to some kind of spiritual leader?

Better yet: why didn’t they just vote for Oprah? At least she doesn’t have ties to former terrorists, Marxists and Chicago criminals. And just think. We could have the entire country reading the same book every month. Think of the possibilities!

RE: “First, by the time she wrote it, it was already old news that Obama had backtracked on his mandatory community service requirement for students.”

Then you concede the point that at one time the President-Elect wanted to make this mandatory.

RE: “The other thing wrong with the woman’s quote — and the contention of some bloggers — is the equivalence of community service to slavery.”

Wrong: it’s the equivalent of MANDATORY service with slavery. Since government is an exercise in force, what penalties were being considered if people refused to serve?

And since you didn’t have the guts to quote it, I will: Part I of the 13th Amendment is: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Please explain, if you can, how a program to make public service mandatory differs from “involuntary servitude”.

Wow, great bomb-throwing, Michele. Slavery as a straw-man. Nice touch bringing in the racist angle without actually mentioning it.

I, too, am a Scout dad. I love the way the Boy Scouts encourage and reward service projects. Do you suppose Boy Scout service work will count in Obama’s grand scheme? Not a chance – for the same reason that the Left has tried to marginalize Scouting over the past several decades. The rub is that sane and responsible parents don’t think it’s a good idea to send young boys into the woods with gay Scoutmasters, any more than they would think it a good idea to send a straight male leader into the woods with Girl Scouts. For this cardinal sin against the homosexual agenda, Scouting has been cut off from its traditional support from government. (FYI there are almost a million Scouts in this country and half a million adult leaders. Maybe your ‘thousands upon thousands’ estimate is a symptom of innumeracy? Just wondering….) None of this volunteerism will be recognized by our feckless leader. And just to be clear to all you feebs out there (I’m talking to you, Zee [185] and Holly [192] and bigkah624 [312]) that think conservatives are against volunteerism – it’s the centralized, government-directed, government-approved volunteerism that’s the problem. Many of us are quite happy with our little communities. (Plumber [316] said it better.)

But set that aside. Real volunteerism is, um, voluntary, just as real charity is voluntary. I believe it’s good for you, and good karma. Real volunteerism is to “mandatory volunteerism” as real charity is to being robbed at gunpoint. When you pay taxes, some of your money goes to welfare – but that tax money is taken from you involuntarily. Welfare is not charity, it’s an “entitlement”. The act of forced charity is bad karma. Oh, and Lisa Paul [242] and Tony [319]: if you take tax money to fund your program, it’s not voluntary, either.

What is being proposed is for Obama to take more of your money forcibly away from you through taxation, to create a system which coerces people into doing tasks that those people would not have chosen to do of their own free will. It is on the face of it a tremendously wasteful way to do something with negative social utility: centralizing volunteerism. What is worse, it establishes a bureaucracy with the incentive to create massive amounts of paperwork to document the countless acts of simple volunteerism that take place in this country every day. It is the bureaucratization of volunteerism.

Before creating these multiple Corps-clones, can we at least ask if AmeriCorps has actually been worth all the treasure that has been expended on it? Is America really a better place than it would be if those dollars were freed up for actually productive investment? Do students know more than they did before AmeriCorps? I haven’t read any studies that support the notion that AmeriCorps has been anything but a sop to the Alinskyites out there.

By creating by fiat an inflated price for volunteer work ($40 an hour!), Obama’s plan displaces college students from the actual workforce, retarding the acquisition of workforce skills, and inflating prices for everyone else, as businesses have to bid up labor costs to meet staffing requirements (or find cheaper substitutes, like illegal workers). By creating a “bonus” for students, it raises the cost of college tuition for everyone else, as colleges adjust to the increased income stream by – raising tuition! In the end the colleges gain and the students are forced to do busy-work when they should be… studying!

And maybe that’s my instinctive beef with this proposal. Set aside the grotesque central-planning mentality of nationalized volunteerism. Set aside the socialist overtones of Obama’s rhetoric. What I resent is that the inherent assumption of this program is that what I actually did as a college student – learn engineering – is not “socially useful”. The assumption is that somehow the world would have been better if I studied less and ladled more soup. How’s about letting me decide what’s the best thing for me to do for America? I think it’s better if I master these Bessel functions so I can design better more efficient aircraft than if I spend hundreds of hours ladling soup. (Santa Klaus [313] said it better.)

Look, some people enjoy ladling soup to homeless folks – more power to you, so to speak. Other folks don’t enjoy that and think “community service” is what the judge hands down when you are bad but the jails are full. Why can’t you tolerate a little diversity in opinion here? Why does everyone have to sign up for the same set of values? I think the forced uniformity of opinion is part of what triggers a lot of folks to label this proposal “Marxist”. But to be honest I don’t recall the passage in the Communist Manifeto that dealt with community service….

If you want to improve the educational experience and help America, how about providing incentives and programs for math and science education? Obama’s experience with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge shows that these kind of content-based programs take a back seat to ideological indoctrination – which is a major reasons CAC was a dismal failure. Before anyone endorse this CorpsClone idea, maybe we should spend more time finding out if Obama actually learned anything about how to improve educational outcomes by wasting $50 million of foundation money. Make that “$50 billion” and “taxpayer money” and you should begin to understand our skepticism.

The socialist do-gooder wants to do good, and then wants to place all sorts of traps in society to enforce their idea of the good, little ways that men and women who don’t see their goodness and righteousness the same way can be kept out of certain jobs and careers. “Well, Mr. Ubu Roi, you are not a very good man, what have you done to help the underserved, the marginalized, the dispossessed? Not much by our account, all you seem to do is work hard and hire people and pay most of the taxes, but you do nothing for free that we can see. We simply cannot help you, bad Mr. Roi.”

Socialism is a secular religion of losers and sheep, they start with all of their petty little rules and traps, but then, after they’ve set down enough rules and traps, rules and traps, a wolf comes, and gobbles up all the silly sheep, and the little rules become real rules, with real enforces who have very different ideas about how rules should be made and followed. At least there is some satisfaction in watching the sheep get gobbled up; I wonder what look passed across Trotsky’s face as the hatchet came down?

the dems thought it was great sport to run around and burn down ROTC buildings in the 60s – wonder how hypocritical they will get when their national socialist workers compulsory government goosestepping programs provoke a backlash…

You cannot require service. It is either done with free will or it is not service. We dropped the draft because that ‘service” was considered wrong. We cannot have “service” groups whose training includes ideology training. That’s called indoctrination.
The “Brown Shirts” were to be a “service” group. Under the National Socialists (or Nazi’s), they turned into those who broke a lot of glass one night, & graduated to turning in friends, neighbors, & family members.
Socialism is a disease that turns politicians into tyrants. Charismatic leaders of “movements”
into despots. Totalitarianism is the product of those who seek solutions to create utopia. And utopia is a dream state, never achievable, but always a nice place to go, when asleep or in a drug addled haze!
Unity, as preached by even some elected officials, amounts to a system that creates good little lockstep socialists to do the bidding of their “betters.”
The unity & life these folks would create is not freedom. It creates those whose minds have been trained to demand all accept their way, or face consequences. Anyone can march to the drummer. The question is, is it your drummer, or the one forced on you or created in your mind, by a system that tolerates no dissenting opinions?

Two pages of a straw man? Who has argued anywhere that community service is the evil in Obama’s policy? It is the coercion involved. Not one soul believes a high school student wouldn’t be served well by serving others. But it isn’t the government’s job to legislate the labor. You should study the word “service” and then deeply understand what you say when you speak the phrase, “mandatory service.”

I am truly sick to death of this analysis posing as news we are exposed to on a daily basis in the media. Where do you derive that Obama is “responding to criticism” about his requirement policy? Until he is asked questions about this by an antagonistic (as opposed to sycophant) media you are just guessing what he meant by the original policy statement and the subsequent alterations.

Get real. Unless this was originally written to appear at The Onion, you are confused. Because the dirty word here is “coercion.”

The only people who have suggested a draft in the last six years are Democrats.

Of the conservative blogs I’ve read the vast majority of those leaving comments, most particularly those on the mil-blogs, are adamantly against any sort of military conscription.

Why?

Because people forced to do things *suck* at what they are forced to do. No one (for a reasonably reliable value of “no one”) in uniform wants a conscripted soldier working or fighting next to them. Relying on the unreliable in that situation can get you, or someone else, killed.

I have mixed feelings about all of this. I think the $4000 for 100/hrs of service is baloney, but that may be because I have spent the last 2 years as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer living at the poverty level, and one year of service gets you $4725 as an education award. A college student could get almost as much in 2.5 weeks of the same hours?? Crap.
However, I would not call this slavery. Not at all in regards to the history of slavery in this country. The comparison is kind of shocking to me.
I’m also intrigued by someone who was commenting on the difference between a traditional liberal and “leftists”. I’m interested in hearing more of how you differentiate between the two.

As you may be aware, a recent study showed beyond doubt that those who identify themselves as Republicans perform more voluntary work, give more to charity and donate more blood than those who identify themselves as liberals. Considerably more, as it happens.

What we have to ask ourselves is: what is it about conservatives that they don’t need to be asked to help their fellow man, while liberals apparently don’t give it a second thought until an “of the moment” cultist politician tells them to?

Your mindset is a typical example of the ways in which liberals just don’t seem to understand even the basic metaphysics of existence.

The following line from your post says it all:

“Not to denigrate hard work and intelligence, which surely plays a part.”

There is no “surely” about it. And far from just “playing a part,” hard work and intelligence accounts for every single advance that mankind has achieved since the dawn of time. If you dispute this, ask yourself: devoid of hard work and intelligence, just how much “luck” do you suppose would be required to throw together the pieces which make the pieces which make the pieces of an internal combustion engine? How much “chance” would construct a modern hospital with dialysis machines and the tools of laser surgery? How many dice would we have to roll before humans were be-boppin’ and scattin’ around the globe on jet aircraft?

The words “monkey,” “typewriter” and “Shakespeare” come to mind.

And leave it to the liberal to completely miss the point when it comes to the role of freedom in society. The issue is not “is helping others a good thing.” The issue is: “should we or should we not force individuals, under threat of imprisonment, to help others?”

For this is the agenda of the left. They don’t care about the inalienable right of the individual to decide for themselves how much of their time they can afford to give, or how much of their wealth they can afford to donate to help strangers. They don’t care to leave it up to the individual to decide who deserves their help and who doesn’t. The fact that I may not be happy about who my tax dollars help and in what way, means nothing to the leftist who doesn’t believe it should be up to the individual to decide such things.

People, left up to their own devices, are generally kind and caring. When Reagan cut tax rates in the 80′s, charitable donations went up. In fact the rate of charitable donations under Reagan was 55% higher than 25 years prior to his administration. In 1980, $77.5 billion was donated to charity by Americans. By 1989, this figure had risen to $121 billion.

When given control of their own money, people are very generous. But what they don’t need is some self-righteous, power crazed politician ordering them to give up their wealth to some faceless bureaucrat who then divvies out that money according to a political or ideological agenda which may or may not reflect the values and wishes of the taxpayer.

The only welfare in this country should be in the form of private charity. This way, those who decide how welfare is distributed are more accountable for their actions and are subject to the forces of competition. If it becomes known that a charity has no qualms about distributing financial help to those whose idea of “living” is to sit at home all day smoking weed and watching daytime TV instead of looking for work, then I can decide to abstain from donating to that charity. I may also decide not to donate to a charity which helps women obtain convenience abortions, or which helps groups which promote Marxist ideas. That is my decision and mine alone.

The vast majority of people on welfare are quite capable of working. There are two factors separating these people from employment:

First, there are those who can’t be bothered to work and who have carved themselves a tolerable niche in society in which they do nothing productive and accept welfare payments. Perhaps do a little under the table here and there to augment their dole. Such people do not deserve any form of charity at all.

Second, there are those who would love to work but they can’t find any kind of employment whatsoever. There are many reasons for this. Primarily, a lack of the kind of private investment which would create employment for them. This is mainly due to the fact that the government confiscates far too much of the capital required for such investment – and uses it to pay poor people to stay poor, in the form of welfare. But there are other reasons for unemployment, not least of which are the actions of unions who use coercion and threats to procure higher than market wages and use their political clout to force minimum wage levels upon us. When union members secure wages above the market rate, the consumer foots the bill in the form of higher prices – which means they have less money to spend on other things, which creates unemployment in the industries which create those “other things.” The wage increases of union members are always made at the expense of other workers. Minimum wage rates create unemployment because they price out of the market workers whose skills are not worth that minimum rate. Companies obviously avoid creating jobs which lose them money.

I could go on and on. My point is that the left’s whole idea of a society in which “giving” is mandatory is a society in which huge numbers of that society spend their lives as the recipients of welfare – quite unnecessarily – and in many cases never lead productive lives. Meanwhile, the business of being “ones brothers keeper” is reduced to the level of a mobs protection racket instead of an act of love.

And what of those who decide that their first and foremost priority is to their own families, their own children? What business is it of the state or anyone else to dictate that an individual is not allowed to prioritize his or her own flesh and blood, even to the exclusion of others? This is a direct abrogation of the most basic human right of all – the right to dispose of your life in the way you see fit so long as it doesn’t involve using physical force on others. As long as the state decrees that I don’t have such a right, I will do everything I can to resist.

I find it humorous that he’s ready to draft kids who are going to school to try to better themselves and their lot in life while apparently ignoring the 18-24 year old bums who hang out on street corners and commit most of the crime in this country. If anybody ought to have “mandatory public service” in this country, it’s they. “Go to college! Get an education! Clean up the grafitti of criminals and misfits in your spare time!”

Uh, how about you owe something to your fellow man because you are a member of the human race. How about the Christian doctrine that you are your brother’s keeper. If you aren’t a Christian, I can’t think of a single major religion that doesn’t insist that we owe help and aid to the less fortunate, simply because it is the right thing to do.

Baloney…Our Founding fathers understood what freedom meant. They didn’t FORCE anyone to fight for the freedom of the country. They paid them and asked, begged them to stay. Men made their decisions to fight freely. That is beautiful…

Obama has already declared why he wants this “service” why more is not being made of that I have no idea. But here are his word again. See if YOU can parse them.

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

And the naive imagine that this is some sort of Peace Corps? Yea…and “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work makes Freedom)

I maintain that the most useful thing a young person can do is to pursue their own education and to learn to do something – well. Those years should be spent becoming engineers, doctors, etc.., rather than some makework job for the government.
One other thing: altrusim can’t be forced. It has to come from within. Forcing someone to ‘contribute’ doesn’t make them a better person.

Jason S,
May I have the name of a charity I can donate to in your name? My man, yours is the most clearly wrought expression of the position I take and I would like to offer thanks for your completing in written form what the rest of us have only been able to express in less focused bits and pieces.

I don’t know that you’ll be able to convince many who have contributed an opposing view on this thread but I take heart in knowing that articulate, modest and concise intellegence makes an appearance on occasion.

Where do I begin, Jason S. and others? First, can we all get past “compulsory” volunteerism, because that is off the table as far as the Obama administration is concerned. I was the one who posited that maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to require it of high school or college students. Call it Practical Civics, if you like.

As far as Republicans volunteering more than Democrats, I’d like to see that study. I haven’t seen evidence of it in more than 30 years of volunteering in a number of states (Blue and Red), but I’m not doubting there are many Republicans who volunteer. I made a point in many of my comments here to give credit to commentators who did talk about theirs and their kids volunteerism. And I cite a hero of mine, a friend and Republican who, in my mind really was a paragon of volunteerism. (See my latest blog post for details.)

Unfortunately, many of those rational voices here are being drowned out by the screaming and ranting of disgruntled right wingers who are saying the poor are “dirty and undeserving” or that Obama is a Marxist/ Leftist/Communist/Nazi/puppy-killer for even suggesting maybe we need to do more volunteering.

I remember reading about John Wayne’s response when JFK was elected. “I didn’t vote for him, but now he’s my president, I will support him and hope that he does a good job.”

Hung in my rec room, with only a tinge of irony, was a letter I received from George Bush. While I vehemently opposed him and thought his first election was stolen, there was something he did or called for early in his first term that I thought was a good idea, even an innovative idea. I wrote him to say that even though I didn’t vote f